UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   AN  D  EGO 


3  1822  01061  3677 


••{52201061   3677 


UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 
Donated  in  memory  of 


Mr.  Walter  Regeniaardt 
by 


Mrs.  Walter  Regenhardt 


1111 


An  Introduction  to 
Sociology 


BY 
ARTHUR  M.  LEWIS 


CHICAGO 
CHARLES    H.     KERR    &    COMPANY 

1.919 


Copyright.  1912 
«T  CHARLES  H.   KERR  &   COMPANY 


JOHN    P.  HIGGINS 

PRINTER  AND  BINDER 


376-382    MONROE  STREET 
CHICAGO,     ILLINOIS 


PREFACE 

This  book  is  precisely  what  its  title  calls  it— "An  In- 
troduction to  Sociology."  It  makes  no  claim  to  add 
anything  new  to  sociological  theory.  It  is  intended  for 
a  class  of  readers  who  have  not  yet  been  reached  by  the 
sociologists  of  the  university  chairs.  Technical  terms 
are  studiously  avoided,  so  that  it  may  be  comprehended 
by  men  and  women  who  have  never  passed  through  the 
universities  or  had  any  special  training  in  this  or  any 
other  science.  While  it  contains  some  criticism  and 
much  appreciation,  its  chief  function  is  explanation'.  It 
does  not  for  a  moment  presume  to  tell  the  readers  all 
they  should  know  about  the  science  of  society.  The 
purpose  is  to  give  a  condensed  history  of  its  origin  a'nd 
development  and  a  general  idea  of  its  present  position. 
It  is  the  result  of  a  pains-taking1  reading  of  the  chief 
masters  of  the  science,  and  the  author  hopes  that  its 
effect  will  be  to  create  of  to  stimulate  an  appetite  for 
reading  the  works  which  if  expounds  and  from  which 
it  freely  quotes. 

The  contents  of  the  book  were  first  presented  in  the 
form  of  twelve  lectures  from  the  stage  of  the  Garrick 
Theater,  Chicago,  in  the  autumn  of  1911,  to  an  audience 
composed  chiefly  of  working  men.  Eleven  hundred 
members  of  the  audience  were  sufficiently  interested  in 
its  publication  to  pay  for  their  copies  at  the  close  of  the 
course  and  before  a  line  of  the  book  itself  was  written. 
It  will  be  observed  that  the  lecture  form  is  not  followed 
in  the  book ;  there  is  no  attempt  at  a  verbatim  reproduc- 
tion of  the  lectures  themselves.  The  amplifications  of 


PREFACE 

the  platform  are  neither  necessary  nor  desirable  in  a 
book. 

The  reader  who  has  no  previous  acquaintance  with 
the  literature  of  sociology  will  probably  be  considerably 
surprised  at  the  immense  strides  made  in  the  scientific 
analysis  of  social  phenomena  during  the  last  half  cen- 
tury. He  will  also  be  gratified  to  learn,  that  while  this 
country  is  backward  in  almost  every  other  science,  and 
in  scientific  research  generally,  especially  as  compared 
with  Germany,  in  sociology,  thanks  to  the  labors  of 
Lester  F.  Ward,  America  holds  a  foremost  place. 

Our  social  problems  grow  ever  more  acute  and  attract, 
in  an  ever-increasing  degree,  the  serious  attention  of  the 
thinking  world.  If  these  problems  are  ever  to  be  solvedj 
the  solution  must  be  found  in  the  scientific  study  of 
their  causes  and  the  scientific  application  of  the  knowl- 
edge derived  from  that  study.  For  this  reason,  sociol- 
ogy makes  a  direct  appeal  to  all  who  are  interested  in 
making  the  sad  world  better  for  our  children  than  it 
has  ever  been  for  us.  It  is  in  the  hope  that  this  modest 
volume  will  make  some  small  contribution  in  this  direc- 
tion, that  the  author  sends  it  forth. 

ARTHUR  M.  LEWIS. 
Chicago,  Sept.  28,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  THEOLOGICAL  DIFFICULTY         .         .     10 

II.  THE  FREE  WILL  DIFFICULTY        .        .         21 

III.  THE  GREAT  MAN  DIFFICULTY  .        .        .26 

IV.  AUGUST   COMTE — THE  LAW   OF   HUMAN 

DEVELOPMENT 33 

V.    COMTE'S  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  SCIENCES     45 
VI.    HERBERT  SPENCER — STRUCTURAL  SOCIOL- 
OGY          56 

VII.     HERBERT   SPENCER — DATA  OF   SOCIOLOGY    66 
VIII.     HERBERT    SPENCER — ANALOGICAL    SOCIOL- 
OGY        .        .        .     *  .        .        .        .73 
IX.     TRANSITION  FROM   SPENCER  TO  RATZEN- 

HOFER 88 

X.    THE  PLACE  OF  KARL  MARX  IN  SOCIOLOGY     96 

XL     SMALL'S  ESTIMATE  OF  MARX    .        .        .  106 

XII.     SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  SCIENCES      .  116 

XIII.  SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  125 

XIV.  THE  SOCIAL  FORCES 144 

XV.    FACTORS  OF  SOCIAL  PROGRESS    .        .        .155 

XIV.    WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS: 

HAPPINESS 161 

PROGRESS 164 

ACTION 169 

OPINION 171 

KNOWLEDGE 176 

EDUCATION 185 

SUMMARY 191 

XVII.     INDIRECT  ACTION  vs.  DIRECT  ACTION       .  194 
XVIII.    THE  PURPOSE  OF  SOCIOLOGY      .  .  204 


An  Introduction  to  Sociology 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  THEOLOGICAL  DIFFICULTY 

The  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  enriched  our 
modern  languages  with  two  great  words — Biology  and 
Sociology.  The  honors  in  both  cases  fall  to  France 
which  still  held,  as  it  had  held  throughout  the  seven- 
teenth century,  the  foremost  place  in  philosophy  and 
science.  John  Fiske  attributes  the  origin  of  the  word 
"Biology"  to  De  Blainville,  but  Professor  Huxley, 
with  his  usual  thoroughness,  has  shown  that  it  was 
first  used  in  a  book  published  in  1801  by  Jean 
Lamarck,  the  real  father  of  the  modern  evolution 
theory.  As  to  the  origin  of  the  word  "Sociology," 
there  is  no  disagreement.  The  undisputed  honor 
falls  to  August  Comte  who  first  used  it  in  a  book 
written  in  1838.  Biology  was  the  great  science 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  with  Lamarck  as  its  Coper- 
nicus and  Darwin  as  its  Newton.  In  this  century, 
the  foremost  place  will  fall  to  the  "science  of  society" 
which  is,  as  Ward  well  says:  "the  last  and  highest 
landing  on  the  great  staircase  of  education." 

The  chief  root  out  of  which  sociology  has  grown  is 
the  ever-increasing  conviction  of  the  universality  of 
causation.  Science  has  no  existence  apart  from  the 
idea  of  law.  Wherever  we  have  penetrated  the  secrets 


10  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

of  the  universe  thus  far  we  have  found  "cause  and 
effect"  regnant.  As  Starcke  well  maintains :  "all  science 
is  founded  on  faith  in  the  universality  of  causation." 

Whatever  difficulties  may  have  existed  as  to  the  ap- 
plication of  this  concept  to  the  older  sciences,  they 
exist  no  longer.  Astronomy,  Physics  and  Chemistry 
have  been  given  over  completely  to  what  the  Duke  of 
Argyle  called  "The  Reign  of  Law."  The  sciences 
dealing  with  living  things — the  sub-sciences  of  biology 
— are  rapidly  moving  in  the  same  direction,  and  the 
steadily  increasing  perception  that  the  same  fate  awaits 
the  phenomena  of  social  activity  has  brought  society 
within  scientific  reach. 

This  wholly  desirable  attitude  has  not  been  achieved 
without  overcoming  obstacles  similar  to  those  which 
long  blocked  the  progress  of  the  earlier  sciences.  We 
shall  better  understand  the  process  if  we  consider  these 
difficulties  at  some  length. 

The  barriers  which  opposed  themselves  to  the  found- 
ing and  developing  of  sociology  were  chiefly  three.  The 
first  was  purely  theological.  It  may  be  stated  as  "belief 
in  Divine  Providence."  There  was  a  time  when  Divine 
Providence  directed  the  stars  and  determined  the 
weather,  but  astronomy  has  banished  it  from  the  one 
and  meteorology  is  driving  it  from  the  other.  It  has, 
in  fact,  been  expelled  from  field  after  field  of  human 
thought  and  is  making  its  final  and  hopeless  stand  in  the 
field  of  social  phenomena.  If  society  were  ruled  by 
"divine  will"  there  could  be  no  direct  science  of  society. 
If  the  divine  will  were  limited  by  law,  which  theolo- 
gians would  hardly  concede,  there  might  be  a  science 


THE   THEOLOGICAL  DIFFICULTY  1 

of  the  divine  will,  and  this  might  serve  indirectly  as  a 
sort  of  social  science  in  the  second  remove. 

This  would  mean,  however,  the  abolition  of  mys- 
teries which  are  sacred  to  the  religious  mind,  and 
which  will  only  disappear  with  the  disappearance  of 
religion.  The  poet  Cowper  observed  that  "God  moves 
in  a  mysterious  way"  and  the  greater  and  earlier  poet 
who  wrote  the  Book  of  Job  presented  God  as  an  in- 
scrutable mystery:  "Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out 
God?"  In  the  scientific  world  belief  in  divine  provi- 
dence has  lost  its  foot-hold.  It  is  worn  only,  when  worn 
at  all,  as  a  Sunday  coat  to  insure  respectability.  It  is  ex- 
pressed merely  as  a  pious  opinion  to  keep  the  theologi- 
cal fraternity  from  snapping  at  one's  heels. 

In  the  ranks  of  the  working  class  Divine  Providence 
long  held  sway.  In  the  minds  of  many  it  still  rules, 
thanks  to  their  utter  lack  of  scientific  education.  What 
with  long  hours  of  labor  and  meager  access  to  real 
books  it  seemed  as  if  the  laborers  could  never  be  eman- 
cipated from  their  superstitions. 

Fortunately  for  them  a  new  educating  force  has  arisen 
which  serves  them  largely  in  the  place  of  a  scientific 
training.  It  is  in  fact  a  scientific  training  in  itself.  This 
new  emancipating  force  has  been  brilliantly  expounded 
by  two  writers — Paul  Lafargue  and  Professor  Veblen. 
The  latter  has  given  it  a  happy  name.  He  calls  it: 
"The  cultural  incidence  of  the  machine  process." 

The  working  mechanic  has  indeed  outstripped  his 
bourgeois  brother  in  the  shedding  of  outworn  beliefs. 
The  scientific  education  of  the  bourgeois  is  of  the  slen- 
derest, while  the  machine  process  has  wrought  long  and 
well  on  the  mind  of  the  proletariat. 


12  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

"How  comes  it,"  asks  Lafargtie,  "that  the  bourgeois, 
who  receive  a  scientific  education  of  greater  or  less  ex- 
tent, are  still  trammeled  by  religious  ideas,  from  which 
the  workers,  without  education,  have  freed  themselves  ?" 
And  here,  in  part,  is  his  answer  given  in  "Social  and 
Philosophical  Studies,"  a  book  of  immense  value  to 
the  student,  and  published  by  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Co., 
at  the  easily  accessible  price  of  50  cents: 

"The  labor  of  the  mechanical  factory  puts  the  wage- 
worker  in  touch  with  terrible  natural  forces  unknown 
to  the  peasant,  but  instead  of  being  mastered  by  them, 
fae  controls  them.  The  gigantic  mechanism  of  iron  and 
steel  which  fills  the  factory,  which  makes  him  move  like 
an  automaton,  Which  sometimes  clutches  him,  mutilates 
fcim,  bruises  him,  does  not  engender  in  him  a  supersti- 
tious terror  as  the  thunder  does  in  the  peasant,  but 
leaves  him  unmoved,  for  he  knows  that  the  limbs  of  the 
mechanical  monster  were  fashioned  and  mounted  by  his 
comrades,  and  that  he  has  but  to  push  a  lever  to  set  it 
in  motion  or  stop  it.  The  machine,  in  spite  of  its  mirac- 
ulous power  and  productiveness,  has  no  mystery  for  him. 
The  laborer  in  the  electric  works,  who  has  but  to  turn 
a  crank  on  a  dial  to  send  miles  of  motive  power  to  tram- 
ways or  light  to  the  lamps  of  a  city,  has  but  to  say,  like 
the  God  of  Genesis,  "Let  there  be  light,"  and  there  is 
light.  Never  sorcery  more  fantastic  was  imagined,  yet 
for  him  this  sorcery  is  a  simple  and  natural  thing.  He 
would  be  greatly  surprised  if  one  were  to  come  and  tell 
him  that  a  certain  God  might  if  he  chose  stop  the  ma- 
chine and  extinguish  the  lights  when  the  electricity  had 
been  turned  on ;  he  would  reply  that  this  anarchistic  God 
would  be  simply  a  misplaced  gearing  or  a  broken  wire, 
and  that  it  would  be  easy  for  him  to  seek  and  to  find 
this  disturbing  God.  The  practice  of  the  modern  work- 
shop teaches  the  wage-worker  scientific  determinism, 


THE  THEOLOGICAL  DIFFICULTY  13 

without   his   needing  to   pass  through   the  theoretical 
study  of  the  sciences." 

This  also  explains  why  and  how  the  industrial  work- 
ers of  the  cities  have  distanced  the  laborers  of  the 
country. 

One  of  the  most  hopeful  things  in  the  sociological 
outlook  is  this  unconsciously  scientific  attitude  of  the 
great  mass  of  industrial  workers.  It  is  of  great  import- 
ance that  the  student  of  the  science  should  have  a  clear 
grasp  of  its  causes.  It  is  a  clear  case  of  the  spread  of 
the  idea  of  the  universality  of  causation  in  a  large  and 
increasingly  important  division  of  the  community.  It, 
of  course,  takes  the  form  of  a  general  break  down  of 
what  Spencer  calls  the  "theological  bias."  We  shall  now 
consider  Veblen's  exposition  of  this  intellectual  result 
of  the  mechanical  process. 

The  following  passages  are  chosen — not  occurring 
successively — from  Chapter  IX  of  his  book,  "The 
Theory  o.f  Business  Enterprise."  The  chapter  gives 
the  name  of  the  theory  in  its  title :  "The  Cultural  Inci- 
dence of  the  Machine  Process": 

"The  machine  process  pervades  the  modern  life  and 
dominates  it  in  a  mechanical  sense.  Its  dominance  is 
seen  in  the  enforcement  of  precise  mechanical  measure- 
ments and  adjustment  and  the  reduction  of  all  manner 
of  things,  purposes  and  acts,  necessities,  conveniences, 
and  amenities  of  life,  to  standard  units.  The  bearing  of 
this  sweeping  mechanical  standardization  upon  business 
traffic  is  a  large  part  of  the  subject-matter  of  the  fore- 
going chapters.  The  point  of  immediate  interest  here 
is  the  further  bearing  of  the  machine  process  upon  the 
growth  of  culture — the  disciplinary  effect  which  this 
movement  for  standardization  and  mechanical  equiva- 


14  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

lence  has  upon  the  human  material.  This  discipline  falls 
more  immediately  on  the  workmen  engaged  in  the  me- 
dianical  industries,  and  only  less  immediately  on  the 
rest  of  the  community  which  lives  in  contact  with  this 
sweeping  machine  process. 

***  ***** 

"Mechanically  speaking,  the  machine  is  not  his  (the 
workman's)  to  do  with  as  his  fancy  may  suggest.  His 
place  is  to  take  thought  of  the  machine  and  its  work 
in  the  terms  given  him  by  the  process  that  is  going  for- 
ward. His  thinking  in  the  premises  is  reduced  to  stand- 
ard units  of  gauge  and  grade.  If  he  fails  of  the  precise 
measure,  by  more  or  less,  the  exigencies  of  the  process 
check  the  aberration  and  drive  home  the  absolute  need 

of  conformity. 

***  ***** 

"If  he  takes  to  myth-making  and  personifies  the  ma- 
chine, or  the  process,  and  imputes  purpose  and  benevo- 
lence to  the  mechanical  appliances,  after  the  manner  of 
current  nursery  tales  and  gulpit  oratory,  he  is  sure  to 

go  wrong. 

***  ***** 

"The  machine  process  throws  out  anthropomorphic 
habits  of  thought.  *  *  *  The  machine 
technology  rests  on  a  knowledge  of  impersonal,  material 
cause  and  effect,  not  on  the  dexterity,  diligence  or  per- 
sonal force  of  the  workman,  still  less  on  the  habits  and 
propensities  of  the  workman's  superiors.  *  *  * 
It  inculcates  thinking  in  terms  of  opaque,  impersonal 
cause  and  effect,  to  the  neglect  of  those  norms  of  validity 
that  rest  on  usage  and  on  conventional  standards  handed 

dfown  by  usage. 

*         *         *  *         *         *         *         * 

"Its  scheme  of  knowledge  and  of  inference  is  based 
on  the  laws  of  material  causation,  not  on  those  of  im- 
memorial custom,  authenticity,  or  authoritative  enact- 
ment. Its  metaphysical  basis  is  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect,  which  in  the  thinking  of  its  adepts  has  displaced 


THE   THEOLOGICAL   DIFFICULTY  15 

even  the  law  of  sufficient  reason.  *  *  *  Anthro- 
pomorphism, under  whatever  disguise,  is  of  no  use  and 
of  no  force  here. 

***  ***** 

"The  intellectual  and  spiritual  training  of  the  machine 
in  modern  life,  therefore,  is  very  far-reaching.  It  leaves 
but  a  small  proportion  of  the  community  untouched ;  but 
while  its  constraint  is  ramified  throughout  the  body  of 
the  population,  and  constrains  virtually  all  classes  at 
some  points  in  their  daily  life,  it  falls  with  the  most  di- 
rect, intimate,  and  unmitigated  impact  upon  the  skilled 
mechanical  classes,  for  these  have  no  respite  from  its 
mastery  whether  they  are  at  work  or  at  play." 

Professor  Veblen  continues  the  development  of  his 
argument  with  great  skill.  He  contends  that  the  school- 
ing of  the  machine  has  led  the  trades  unions  into  a 
mental  attitude  which  has  no  reverence  for  the  common 
law.  And  this  because  the  common  law  is  "founded  on 
the  metaphysical  doctrine  of  natural  rights  and  the  sa- 
cred theories  of  personal  status  and  private  property,  all 
of  which  ideas  are  alien  to  the  logic  of  the  machine  pro- 
cess. The  machine  technology  produces  this  result  not  so 
much  by  contradicting  conventional  ideas  as  by  ignor- 
ing them  to  the  point  of  causing  them  to  lose  their 
force. 

Our  author  next  shows  that  the  machine  process  is 
back  of  the  "Socialistic  disaffection."  His  writing  on 
this  part  of  his  theme  reminds  one  of  the  peculiar  style 
used  by  Galileo  and  Descartes  and  others  who  in  the 
middle  ages  tried  to  advocate  certain  theories  without 
appearing  to  the  vigilant  watch  dogs  of  the  inquisition 
to  do  so.  The  Professor's  subsequent  career  is  evi- 
dence enough  that  it  is  still  hazardous  to  hold  Socialistic 


16  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ideas  in  universities,  though,  through  the  sheer  in- 
crease in  numbers,  it  is  becoming  less  and  less  conspicu- 
ous and  therefore  less  disastrous.  This  seems  to  be 
the  only  explanation  of  Veblen's  use  of  such  terms  as 
"socialistic  vagaries"  when  his  main  argument  is  quite 
favorable  to  the  socialist  idea. 

Again,  while  there  is  an  undercurrent  of  sympathy 
for  the  "Socialist  disaffection"  there  is  an  open  flouting 
of  the  pettifogging  measures  of  those  whose  insight 
or  courage  falls  short  of  the  program  of  Socialism.  This 
comes  out  in  the  following  passage  from  a  footnote, 
which  deserves  to  be  printed  in  letters  of  gold. 

Speaking  of  "the  unpropertied  classes  employed  in 
business"  and  therefore  outside  the  direct  impact  of  the 
machine  process  Veblen  says : 

"This  pecuniarily  disfranchised  business  population,  in 
its  revulsion  against  unassimilated  facts,  turns  rather 
[instead  of  to  Socialism]  to  some  excursion  into  prag- 
matic romance,  such  as  Social  Settlements,  Prohibition, 
Clean  Politics,  Single  Tax,  Arts  and  Crafts,  Neighbor- 
hood Guilds,  Institutional  Church,  Christian  Science, 
New  Thought,  or  some  such  cultural  thimblerig." 

"Pragmatic  romance"  and  "cultural  thimblerig"  stir 
in  one  a  joy  such  as  Keats  tells  us  he  experienced  when 
he  came  across  such  descriptive  phrases  as  "sea-shoulder- 
ing whale." 

Veblen  is  considered  at  length  here  because  he  re- 
veals with  great  clearness  one  of  the  master  forces  mak- 
ing in  the  direction  of  Sociology.  The  book  from 
which  the  above  quotations  are  made,  published  by 
Scribners,  and  his  "The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class," 
published  by  MacMillan,  have  met  with  no  reception  at 


THE  THEOLOGICAL  DIFFICULTY  17 

all  consonant  with  their  importance  for  sociology.  "The 
Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class"  is  a  much  more  valuable 
contribution  to  American  sociological  literature  than 
many  more  pretentious  volumes  and  for  the  question 
under  discussion  here,  the  student  will  be  well  repaid 
by  a  careful  reading.  The  following  is  from  the  latter 
part  of  the  chapter  on  "Devout  Observances": 

"The  workman's  office  is  becoming  more  and  more 
exclusively  that  of  discretion  and  supervision  in  a  pro- 
cess of  mechanical,  dispassionate  sequences.  So  long  as 
the  individual  is  the  chief  and  typical  prime  mover  in 
the  process ;  so  long  as  the  obtrusive  feature  of  the  in- 
dustrial process  is  the  dexterity  and  force  of  the  indi- 
vidual handicraftsman ;  so  long  as  the  habit  of  interpret- 
ing phenomena  in  terms  of  personal  motive  and  propen- 
sity [which  is  the  essence  of  theology]  suffers  no  such 
considerable  and,  consistent  derangement  through  facts  as 
to  lead  to  its  elimination.  But  under  the  later  developed 
industrial  processes,  when  the  prime  movers  and  the 
contrivances  through  which  they  work  are  of  an  im- 
personal, non-individual  character,  the  grounds  of  gen- 
eralization habitually  present  in  the  workman's  mind  and 
the  point  of  view  from  which  he  habitually  apprehends 
phenomena  is  an  enforced  cognizance  of  matter  of  fact 
sequence.  The  result,  so  far  as  concerns  the  workman's 
life  of  faith.,  is  a  proclivity  to  undevout  scepticism." 

This  whole  theory  of  the  effect  of  machinery  on 
thought  explains,  as  Veblen  points  out,  why  the  So- 
cialists of  Germany,  while  capturing  the  industrial  cen- 
ters make  small  headway  in  the  rural  districts.  In 
America  this  is  not  so  pronounced  because  our  farmers 
have  not  been  steeped  for  centuries  in  what  Marx  called 
"the  idiocy  of  country  life." 

Professor  Henderson  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  is 


18  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

reported  as  saying  in  a  lecture  of  a  few  days  ago  that 
religion  is  losing  its  hold  on  the  business  world  because 
business  men  "associate  religion  with  miracle"  and  mir- 
acle is  foreign  to  the  business  habit  of  thought..  And 
this  is  much  more  true  of  the  machine  worker. 

The  anti-theological  effect  of  the  machine  process  on 
the  mind  of  the  worker  is  paralleled  by  the  same  effect 
of  the  natural  sciences  on  the  workers  in  that  field.  As 
Veblen  says:  "As  regards  the  educated  classes,  social- 
istic views  are  particularly  likely  to  crop  out  among  the 
men  in  the  material  sciences.'*  We  refer  to  Socialism  in 
this  connection  because  it  is  a  conspicuous  instance  of 
the  steady  drift  toward  a  science  of  society. 

The  machine  process  and  what  might  be  called  the 
scientific  trend  work  well  together  toward  a  common 
sociological  result.  Veblen,  indeed,  makes  the  machine 
process  the  cause  of  the  scientific  trend,  though  there  is 
much  to  be  said  for  their  mutual  interaction. 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  theological  phrases  sudh 
as  "creator"  which  Darwin  used  and  which,  McCabe 
tells  us,  he  afterward  repented,  as  so  much  unfortunate 
truckling  to  public  opinion,  the  great  English  biologist 
is  an  eminent  example  of  the  modern  scientific  spirit. 
And  Veblen  has  no  hesitation  in  making  Darwin's  scien- 
tific method  the  consequence  of  the  intellectual  atmos- 
phere generated  by  the  early  English  machine  industry. 
This  is  a  daring  application  of  "economic  determinism" 
and  worth  reproducing  here  in  full: 

"This  early  technological  advance,  of  course,  took 
place  in  the  British  community,  where  the  machine  pro- 
cess first  gained  headway  and  where  the  discipline  of 
a  prevalent  machine  industry  inculcated  thinking  in  terms 


THE   THEOLOGICAL  DIFFICULTY  19 

of  the  machine  process.  So  also  it  was  in  the  British 
community  that  modern  science  fell  in  the  lines  marked 
out  by  technological  thinking  and  began  to  formulate  its 
theories  in  terms  of  process  rather  than  in  terms  of 
prime  causes  and  the  like.  While  something  of  this 
kind  is  noticeable  relatively  early  in  some  of  the  inor- 
ganic sciences,  as,  e.  g.,  Geology,  the  striking  and  de- 
cisive move  in  this  direction  was  taken  toward  the  mid- 
dle of  the  century  by  Darwin  and  his  contemporaries. 
Without  much  preliminary  exposition  and  without  feel- 
ing himself  to  be  out  of  touch  with  his  contemporaries, 
Darwin  set  to  work  to  explain  species  in  terms  of  the 
process  out  of  which  they  have  arisen,  rather  than  out 
of  the  prime  causes  to  which  the  distinction  between 
them  may  be  due.  Denying  nothing  as  to  the  substan- 
tial services  of  the  Great  Artificer  in  the  development  of 
species,  he  simply  and  naively  left  Him  out  of  the 
scheme,  because,  as  being  a  personal  factor,  He  could 
not  be  stated  and  handled  in  terms  of  process.  *  *  * 
His  results,  as  well  as  his  specific  determination  of  fac- 
tors at  work  in  this  process  of  cumulative  change  (in 
organic  evolution)  have  been  questioned;  perhaps  they 
are  open  to  all  the  criticisms  leveled  against  them  as 
well  as  to  a  few  more  not  yet  thought  of ;  but  the  scope 
and  method  given  to  scientific  inquiry  by  Darwin  and 
the  generation  whose  spokesman  he  is,  has  substantially 
not  been  questioned,  except  by  that  diminishing  contin- 
gent of  the  faithful  who  by  force  of  special  training  or 
by  native  gift  are  not  amenable  to  the  discipline  of  the 
machine  process." 

The  student  who  approaches  sociology  through  this 
book — and  this  will  probably  be  its  function  to  most  of 
its  readers — may  as  well  be  told  the  plain  truth  here 
at  the  outset.  Theological  ideas,  in  this,  as  in  any  other 
scientific  field,  are  as  so  many  heavy  weights  hung  to 
the  waist-belt  of  a  foot-racer — rapid  progress  will  be 


20  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

impossible  until  they  are  thrown  aside.  The  immense 
superiority  of  the  sociological  works  of  Lester  F.  Ward 
to  those  of,  say  Giddings,  for  example,  is  largely  due 
to  Ward's  rigid  adherence  to  the  scientific  spirit  when 
theology  is  in  question.  As  we  shall  see  presently,  the 
acknowledged  founder  of  the  science,  August  Comte,  saw 
clearly  that  the  laying  of  the  theological  ghost  must  be 
the  initial  step  in  the  scientific  interpretation  of  social 
activity. 

Happily,  in  this  respect,  Sociology  is  heir  to  the  labors 
of  the  giants  who  toiled  in  the  fields  of  physical  and 
biological  science.  All  that  is  necessary  for  her  is  to 
adopt  the  method  and  weapons  which  crowned  with  suc- 
cess the  epoch-making  labors  of  Copernicus,  Kepler, 
Galileo,  Newton,  Kant  and  Laplace,  in  astronomy  and 
physics,  and  Darwin  and  his  colleagues  in  organic  sci- 
ences. 

Theology,  driven  from  one  field  after  another,  makes 
its  final  stand  in  the  science  of  society.  Here  it  is  in 
its  last  trench,  and  while  it  is  discouraging  to  note  that 
the  oft-tought  battle  must  be  waged  again  and  again, 
there  is  some  compensation  in  the  reflection  that  when 
it  is  vanquished  here  it  can  never  again  rear  its  hoary 
head  to  mock  the  upward  struggles  of  the  marching 
hosts  of  men. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  FREE  WILL  DIFFICULTY 

Following  after  and  growing  out  of  theological  con- 
cepts is  another  belief  in  violent  conflict  with  the  idea 
of  a  science  of  society.  This  is  the  much-discussed 
doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  the  will.  If  the  free  will 
theory,  in  its  ordinary  and  generally  accepted  meaning 
is  true,  sociology  is  impossible.  That  theory,  if  true, 
presents  a  difficulty  wholly  insurmountable. 

This  objection  was  clearly  stated  by  the  English  His- 
torian, Anthony  Froude,  who  held  to  both  the  doctrine 
and  its  —  for  sociology  —  disastrous  consequences. 
Froude  says: 

"When  natural  causes  are  liable  to  be  set  aside  and 
neutralized  by  what  is  called  volition,  the  word  science 
is  out  of  place.  If  it  is  free  to  a  man  to  choose  what  he 
will  do  or  not  do,  there  is  no  adequate  science  of  him. 
It  is  in  this  marvelous  power  in  men  to  do 
wrong  .  .  .  that  the  impossibility  stands  of  forming 
scientific  calculations  of  what  men  will  do  before  the 
fact,  or  scientific  explanations  of  what  men  have  done 
after  the  fact." 

The  free  will  doctrine  has  never  gone  unchallenged 
since  the  days  when  Democritus  held  that  all  things 
in  the  universe,  including  human  actions,  were  governed 
by  rigid  unescapable  necessity.  The  general  mass  of 
mankind  have  always  felt  that  many  if  not  all  their  acts 
were  impelled  by  forces  beyond  their  control,  and  words 
and  phrases  were  formed  to  express  this  feeling.  Such 

21 


22  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

are  fate,  destiny,  fortune,  the  finger,  or  the  will,  of  God 
The  Calvinistic  faith,  with  its  doctrine  of  predestination, 
is  a  total  denial  of  free  will. 

In  our  day  there  is  a  greater  and  growing  general 
sentiment  which  echoes  the  position  of  John  Stuart 
Mill:  "Given  the  motives  which  are  present  to  an  indi- 
vidual's mind,  and  given  likewise  the  character  and  dis- 
position of  the  individual,  the  manner  in  which  the  in- 
dividual will  act  might  unerringly  be  inferred." 

This  conception,  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  general 
mind,  is  admirably  set  forth  by  Archbishop  Whately  in 
his  "Elements  of  Logic": 

"Everyone  is  accustomed  to  anticipate  future  events, 
in  human  affairs,  as  well  as  in  the  material  world,  in 
proportion  to  his  knowledge  of  the  several  circumstances 
connected  with  each;  however  different  in  amount  that 
knowledge  may  be,  in  reference  to  different  occurrences. 
And  in  both  cases  alike,  we  always  attribute  the  failure 
of  any  anticipation  to  our  ignorance  or  mistake  respect- 
ing some  of  the  circumstances.  When  we  fully  expect, 
from  our  supposed  knowledge  of  some  person's  char- 
acter, and  of  circumstances  he  is  placed  in,  that 
he  will  do  something  which,  eventually,  he  does 
not  do,  we  at  once  and  without  hesitation  con- 
clude that  we  were  mistaken  either  as  to  his  char- 
acter, or  as  to  his  situation,  or  as  to  our  acquaint- 
ance with  human  nature,  generally;  and  we  are 
accustomed  to  adduce  any  such  failure  as  a  proof  of 
such  mistake;  saying  'It  is  plain  you  were  mistaken  in 
your  estimate  of  that  man's  character;  for  he  has  done 
so  and  so;'  and  this  as  unhesitatingly  as  we  should  at- 
tribute the  non-occurrence  of  an  eclipse  we  had  pre- 
dicted, not  to  ,any  change  in  the  Laws  of  Nature,  but 
to  some  error  in  our  calculations." 


THE  FREE   WILL  DIFFICULTY  23 

Among  philosophers  Emanuel  Kant  is  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  a  free  will  adherent.  That  this  is  a  mis- 
taken assumption  his  statement  as  follows  clearly 
proves : 

"Whatsoever  difference  there  may  be  in  our  notions 
of  the  freedom  of  the  will  metaphysically  considered, — 
it  is  evident  that  the  manifestations  of  this  will,  viz.: 
human  actions,  are  as  much  under  the  control  of  nature 
as  any  physical  phenomena.  It  is  the  province  of  his- 
tory to  narrate  these  manifestations ;  and  let  their  causes 
be  ever  so  secret,  we  know  that  history,  simply  by  taking 
its  station  at  a  distance  and  contemplating  the  agency 
of  the  human  will  upon  a  large  scale,  aims  at  unfolding 
to  our  view  a  regular  stream  of  tendency  in  the  great 
succession  of  events ;  so  that  the  very  course  of  inci- 
dents, which  taken  separately  and  individually  would 
have  seemed  perplexed,  incoherent,  and  lawless,  yet 
viewed  in  their  connection  and  as  the  actions  of  the 
human  species  and  not  of  independent  beings,  never  fail 
to  discover  a  steady  and  continuous  though  slow  develop- 
ment of  certain  great  predispositions  of  our  nature.  Thus 
for  instance,  deaths,  births,  and  marriages,  considering 
how  much  they  are  separately  dependent  on  the  free- 
dom of  the  human  will,  should  seem  to  be  subject  to  no 
law  according  to  which  any  calculation  could  be  made 
beforehand  of  their  amount :  and  yet  the  yearly  registers 
of  these  events  in  great  countries  prove  that  they  go  on 
with  as  much  conformation  to  the  laws  of  nature  as  the 
oscillations  of  the  weather." 

While  the  free  will  doctrine  has  still  some  following 
in  the  general,  and  especially  the  cloudy-minded  relig- 
ious world,  it  has  been  definitely  and  totally  abandoned 
by  scientific  men.  "There  can,  of  course,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Guenther,  "be  no  question  of  free  will  to  the 
scientifically-minded  man."  "Human  actions  are,"  h$ 


24  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

elsewhere  says,  "determined  by  causes  that  lie  behind, 
not  before  them."  Says  Ernest  Haeckel:  "The  great 
struggle  between  the  determinist  and  the  indeterminist, 
between  the  opponent  and  the  sustainer  of  the  freedom 
of  the  will,  has  ended  today,  after  more  than  two  thou- 
sand years,  completely  in  favor  of  the  determinist." 

This  culmination  of  the  free-will  controversy  was  a 
necessary  fore-runner  of  the  founding  of  the  science  of 
sociology.  Among  the  sociologists  this  is  clearly  recog- 
nized. The  sociologists  are  determinists  by  the  first 
demands  of  their  science.  They  cannot  go  forward  a 
single  step  on  any  other  basis.  This  necessary  attitude 
of  the  sociologists  is  well  exemplified  by  one  of  the 
greatest  among  them,  Lester  F.  Ward,  who  writes  as 
follows : 

"The  will,  that  highest  power  of  the  mind  of  which 
we  boast  so  much,  is,  if  not  a  chimera,  at  least  a  far 
different  thing  from  what  it  appears  to  be.  The  real 
paradox  here  is  the  truth  that  it  is  an  effect  as  well  as 
a  cause.  Like  the  universe,  like  life,  like  man  himself, 
like  the  other  faculties  of  the  mind,  the  will  is  a  genetic 
product  of  cosmical  law.  The  illusion  consists  in  sup- 
posing that  our  will  is  subject  to  our  orders,  that  it  is 
in  any  sense  free.  Yet  here  in  the  dependence  of  the 
will  we  have  a  paradox  which  clings  with  the  utmost 
tenacity,  even  to  the  most  enlightened  of  mankind.  They 
have  been  compelled  to  admit  the  monistic  principle  in 
the  celestial  bodies,  in  the  inorganic  world,  perhaps  in 
the  organic  world.  They  may  be  even  willing  to  agree 
that  man  is  himself  a  genetic  product,  that  brain  has 
been  mechanically  evolved,  that  sensation  and  even 
thought  are  the  effects  of  antecedent  causes,  but,  when 
the  great  demi-god  will  is  sought  to  be  rolled  in,  they 
take  fright  and  resist  this  last  encroachment.  These 


THE  FREE   WILL  DIFFICULTY  25 

several  classes  of  mind  only  show  the  degrees  of  causal 
power  with  which  they  are  endowed.  A  full  comple- 
ment^ of  causality  never  allows  itself  to  be  arrested  by 
the  consideration  of  consequences.  If  the  universe  is 
the  theater  of  law,  freedom  is  a  delusion." 

The  method  of  this  book  is  to  allow  the  authorities 
to  speak  for  themselves  and,  as  far  as  possible,  in  their 
own  language.  The  reader,  by  this  time,  has  probably 
heard  enough  to  be  convinced  that  our  ancient  friend 
"free  will"  has  had  his  day  and  ceased  to  be.  His  pain- 
less anaesthetic  death  at  the  hands  of  science  adds  one 
more  milestone  on  the  road  to  scientific  interpretation 
of  social  phenomena. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  GREAT  MAN  DIFFICULTY 

The  writer  recalls  reading  in  his  theological  youth 
a  lecture  by  an  eminent  preacher  of  the  English  Church 
on  "Old  Testament  History."  If  memory  fails  not  it 
was  one  of  Cannon  Liddon's  Bampton  Lectures,  though 
for  our  purpose  the  precise  authorship  is  of  small  im- 
portance. The  whole  body  of  -this  "divinity"  literature 
has  steadily  lost  its  value  with  the  passing  years  and 
the  rising  tide  of  natural  science.  The  only  value  for 
us  of  the  lecture  in  question  is  that  it  is  representative 
of  a  common  theological  attitude  toward  history.  The 
lecturer  had  a  very  simple  and  easy  explanation  of  He- 
brew history  of  the  period  of  Elisha.  It  consisted  of 
a  comfortable  and  well-assured  explanation  of  Elisha 
himself.  God  foresaw  that  the  Hebrew  race  was  ap- 
proaching a  crisis  in  its  career  and  that  a  strong  man 
would  be  needed  to  shape  its  destinies.  Therefore,  in 
his  creative  laboratory  he  constructed  Elisha,  equipped 
him  for  his  task,  and  sent  him  forth  at  the  proper  mo- 
ment to  fulfill  his  historic  mission. 

For  the  type  of  thinker  who  accepts  this  as  an  ex- 
planation of  the  human  drama,  the  perplexities  of  his- 
tory vanish.  All  he  needs  to  do  is  to  study  the  great 
men  and  perceive  in  their  acts  the  will  of  the  great 
God  who  shapes  them  for  the  occasion.  In  some  quar- 
ters, where  the  insistent  demands  of  the  scientific  spirit 
have  caused  the  Deity's  share  in  the  proceedings  to  be 


THE  GREAT  MAN  DIFFICULTY  27 

dropped,  the  "great  man"  is  still  held  to  be  the  only 
explanation  of  the  annals  of  mankind. 

For  Sociology,  however,  the  "Great  Man  Theory," 
as  commonly  understood,  is  "a  lion  in  the  path,"  and  its 
removal  is  an  imperative  necessity.  This  does  not  mean 
that  great  men  are  not  great.  Nor  does  it  imply  any 
detraction  from  their  fame  and  credit.  What  stands  in 
the  way  is  not  the  Great  Man  but  the  "Great  Man 
Theory."  In  the  case  of  "free  will"  there  is  no  denial 
of  the  existence  of  the  will  but  only  repudiation  of  the 
notion  that  it  is  free  and  its  decisions  uncaused.  The 
science-impeding  character  of  the  great  man  theory  lies 
in  its  assumption  that  the  great  man  is  a  sort  of  un- 
caused first  cause. 

The  standard  text-book  of  the  theory  is  Thomas  Car- 
lyle's  "Heroes  and  Hero  Worship."  Like  most  of  Car- 
lyle's  books  it  is  a  combination  of  first  class  writing  and 
second  rate  thinking.  The  essential  nature  of  the 
theory  is  that  it  regards  history  as  dependent  upon  the 
appearance  of  some  one  man  at  a  certain  critical  mo- 
ment. Fortunately  these  human  stars  usually  blazed 
forth  when  their  light  was  most  needed.  Had  they 
failed  the  tide  of  history  would  have  set  in  some  other 
unknown  direction.  Carlyle's  treatment  of  Luther  is  a 
case  in  point.  Without  Luther,  the  Reformation  which 
bears  his  name  had  been  impossible.  For  Carlyle,  this 
is  not  enough.  Without  this  one  man,  the  whole  of 
subsequent  history  would  have  been  otherwise,  including 
the  history  of  the  Western  Continent.  Carlyle  goes  the 
length  of  making  all  this  hinge  not  merely  on  Luther 
but  on  one  of  his  acts.  Speaking  of  Luther's  behavior 
at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  Carlyle  says: 


28  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

"It  is,  as  we  say,  the  greatest  moment  in  the  modern 
history  of  men.  English  Puritanism,  England  and  its 
parliaments,  Americas,  and  vast  work  these  two  cen- 
turies; French  revolution,  Europe  and  its  work  every- 
where at  present;  the  germ  of  it  all  lay  there:  had 
Luther  in  that  moment  done  other,  it  had  all  been  other- 
wise." 

What  shines  forth  most  clearly  in  this  extravagant 
language  is  not  the  importance  of  Luther,  but  the  pov- 
erty of  Carlyle's  sense  of  historical  causation.  Modern 
Sociology  has,  and  must  have,  an  entirely  different  view. 
For  it  the  Reformation  would  have  been  achieved,  Lu- 
ther or  no  Luther.  The  secular  powers  of  Germany 
and  some  other  countries  were  ripe  for  a  revolt  against 
the  tremendous  monetary  drain  of  Rome,  and  they  were 
ready  to  form  in  a  solid,  phalanx  behind  the  first  man 
who  should  raise  the  standard  of  revolt.  Without  that 
backing,  Luther  would  have  been  trampled  like  a  reed. 
With  those  forces  lying  in  wait  it  was  only  a  question 
of  who  should  be  first  to  strike.  To  change  the  simile, 
the  air  was  full  of  sparks  and  had  not  Luther's  fallen 
in  the  powder  magazine  some  other  would.  It  was  only 
a  question  of  days  or  weeks  or  at  the  most  months. 
The  times  had  reached  a  pitch  where  the  explosion  was 
inevitable.  In  civil  history  the  actual  demonstration  of 
this  truth  is,  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible.  Once 
the  deed  is  done  there  is  no  chance  for  another  to  prove 
that  he  would  have  done  it  'had  the  first  champion  failed. 

There  is  another  field,  however,  where  these  condi- 
tions do  not  obtain  and  the  proof  of  the  independence 
of  development  of  any  one  man  is  abundant.  This  is 
the  equally  if  not  more  important  history  of  science. 


THE  GREAT  MAN  DIFFICULTY  29 

The  history  of  science  is  replete  with  instances  of  dual 
and  sometimes  treble  and  even  quadruple  independent 
discoveries  of  epoch-making  things  and  truths.  When 
the  development  of  ideas  reaches  a  certain  stage  and  the 
thought  of  the  time  is  ripe  for  the  next  step  forward, 
it  is  made — and  its  making  clearly  depends  on  no  one 
"great  man." 

As  I  have  treated  this  question  at  length  in  my  chap- 
ter on  Carlyle  in  "Ten  Blind  Leaders  of  the  Blind," 
the  evidence  will  be  condensed  here. 

The  telescope  has  played  an  important  role  in  modern 
thought  and  if  it  had  not  been  invented  by  either  of  the 
Dutch  spectacle  makers,  Jansen  and  Lippershey,  in  1609, 
it  is  certain  Galileo  would  have  made  one  a  little  later. 

While  Priestley  was  busy  in  England  with  a  new  gas 
he  had  discovered,  and  which  Lavoisier  in  France  pro- 
nounced to  be  oxygen,  an  essential  and  combustible  ele- 
ment in  air — and  the  nemesis  of  phogiston — the  same 
discovery  was  being  independently  made  by  a  poor  apoth- 
ecary, Scheele,  in  Kj oping,  Sweden. 

The  famous  "Nebular  Hypothesis"  usually  attributed, 
by  most  American  writers,  solely  to  Laplace,  was  clearly 
expounded  by  Kant  half  a  century  earlier  in  his  "Theory 
of  the  Heavens,"  and  then  apparently  lost  to  sight,  and, 
independently,  rediscovered  by  the  Frenchman.  In 
Europe,  however,  Kant's  claim  is  fully  recognized  and 
the  theory  is  often  referred  to  as  the  Kantian  Hypoth- 
esis. 

After  Herschel  had  discovered  the  new,  and  then  far- 
thest known,  planet  Uranus  in  1781,  its  movements  were 
seen  to.be  perturbed  at  a  certain  point  in  its  immense 
orbit,  a  perturbation  which  could  only  be  explained,  by 


30  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

Newton's  gravitation,  by  the  presence  of  some  other 
large  and  unknown  body  in  that  neighborhood.  The 
dual  and  independent  discoveries  of  this  body  (Nep- 
tune) by  the  Frenchman  Lever rier  and  the  Englishman 
Adams  is  not  only  celebrated  but  notorious,  it  having 
furnished  one  of  the  most  unpleasant  international  con- 
troversies as  to  priority,  in  the  annals  of  science. 

In  the  history  of  the  mathematics  which  led  to  Nep- 
tune's discovery,  it  will  be  remembered  that  when  the 
ordinary  calculus  had  ceased  to  meet  the  expanding 
needs  of  astronomers  the  "Differential  Calculus"  had 
three  independent  births,  in  three  different  countries, 
through  the  respective  labors  of  Newton,  Leibnetz  and 
Lagrange. 

The  twin  birth  of  Darwin's  theory  of  "Natural  Selec- 
tion" is  probably  better  known  than  the  nature  of  the 
theory  itself.  Wallace  was  ready  for  publication  be- 
fore Darwin  and  would  undoubtedly  have  been  first 
in  print  had  he  been  at  home  to  attend  to  its  print- 
ing himself.  Fortunately  Darwin's  priority  was  easily 
established  to  the  full  and  generous  acknowledgment 
of  Wallace,  and  science  was  saved  the  humiliation  of  hav- 
ing one  of  its  greatest  conquests  lashed  to  the  name  of 
a  victim  of  the  fantastic  vagaries  of  spiritualism. 

These  evidences  of  the  independence  of  scientific 
progress  of  any  one  great  man  are  inexhaustible,  and 
we  will  close  this  brief  list  with  one  of  great  importance 
to  Sociology.  The  "Materialist  Conception  of  History" 
came  before  the  world  under  joint  authorship.  The 
Communist  Manifesto  in  which  it  was  first  announced 
bore  the  names  of  Karl  Marx  and  Frederick  Engels. 
From  its  interesting  preface  we  learn  that,  while  Engels 


THE  GREAT  MAN  DIFFICULTY  31 

awards  the  laurels  to  Marx,  we  should  have  had  this 
brilliant  and  revolutionary  generalization  from  Engels, 
though  Marx  had  never  lived. 

Despite  the  steady  growth  of  the  evidence  against 
the  great  man  theory  it  still  lingers  as  a  sort  of  rudi- 
mentary idea.  There  are  still  living,  people  who  imagine 
that  Rousseau  created  the  French  Revolution,  that 
Washington  conjured  forth  the  struggle  for  independ- 
ence, and  that  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  abolished  American 
chattel  slavery.  But  the  real  social  forces  responsible 
for  these  civil  transformations  are  steadily  rising  into 
view,  and  the  poetic  and  romantic  interpretation  of  his- 
tory is  receding  in  a  corresponding  degree.  With  the 
decay  of  theological  and  metaphysical  modes  of  thought, 
there  is  an  ever-increasing  conviction  that  the  great  man 
is  more  the  creature  than  the  creator  of  the  signal  ad- 
vances of  his  time. 

The  eloquent  advocacy  of  the  theory  by  Carlyle  has 
been  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  merciless  analy- 
sis of  Herbert  Spencer.  Spencer,  in  his  "Study  of  So- 
ciology," rang  the  death  knell  of  the  great  man  theory : 

"Even  were  we  to  grant  the  absurd  supposition  that 
the  genesis  of  the  great  men  does  not  depend  on  the 
antecedents  furnished  by  the  society  he  is  born  in,  there 
would  still  be  the  quite  sufficient  facts  that  he  is  power- 
less in  the  absence  of  the  material  and  mental  accumu- 
lations which  his  society  inherits  from  the  past,  and 
that  he  is  powerless  in  the  absence  of  the  co-existing 
population,  character,  intelligence,  and  social  arrange- 
ments. Given  a  Shakespeare,  and  what  dramas  could 
he  have  written  without  the  multitudinous  traditions  of 
civilized  life — without  the  various  experiences  which, 
descending  to  him  from  the  past,  gave  wealth  to  his 


32  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

thought,  and  without  the  language  which  a  hundred 
generations  had  developed  and  enriched  by  use?  Sup- 
pose a  Watt,  with  all  his  inventive  power,  living  in  a 
tribe  ignorant  of  iron,  or  in  a  tribe  that  could  get  only 
as  much  iron  as  a  fire  blown  by  hand-bellows  will  smelt, 
or  suppose  him  born  among  ourselves  before  lathes  ex- 
isted ;  what  chance  would  there  have  been  of  the  steam 
engine?  Imagine  a  Laplace  unaided  by  that  slowly  de- 
veloped system  of  mathematics  which  we  trace  back  to 
its  beginnings  among  the  Egyptians ;  how  far  would  he 
have  got  with  the  Mecanique  Celeste?  Nay,  the  like 
questions  may  be  put  and  have  like  answers,  even  if  we 
limit  ourselves  to  those  classes  of  great  men  on  whose 
doings  hero-worshippers  more  particularly  dwell — the 
rulers  and  generals.  Xenophon  could  not  have  achieved 
his  celebrated  feat  had  his  Ten  Thousand  been  feeble  or 
cowardly,  or  insubordinate.  Caesar  would  never  have 
made  his  conquests  without  disciplined  troops,  inherit- 
ing their  prestige  and  tactics  and  organization  from  the 
Romans  who  lived  before  them.  And,  to  take  a  recent 
instance,  the  strategical  genius  of  Moltke  would  have 
triumphed  in  no  great  campaigns  had  there  not  been  a 
nation  of  some  forty  millions  to  supply  soldiers,  and  had 
not  those  soldiers  been  men  of  strong  bodies,  sturdy 
characters,  obedient  natures,  and  capable  of  carrying  out 
orders  intelligently." 

Thus,  Spencer,  reviewing  dramatic  events  in  Euro- 
pean history,  concludes: 

"If  you  should  wish  to  understand  these  phenomena 
of  social  evolution,  you  will  not  do  so  though  you  should 
read  yourself  blind  over  the  biographies  of  all  the  great 
rulers  on  record,  down  to  Frederick  the  Greedy  and  Na- 
poleon the  Treacherous." 


CHAPTER    IV 

AUGUST  COMTE — THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  DEVELOPMENT 

The  science  of  sociology,  by  common  consent,  begins 
with  August  Comte.  Like  all  other  departments  of 
thought  it  had  its  more  or  less  distinct  foreshadowings 
— as  Spencer  would  say,  its  adumbrations — in  the  an- 
cient world,  but  its  birth  as  a  science,  properly  so-called, 
is  largely  the  result  of  the  labors  of  the  French  Posi- 
tivist  and  founder  of  "Positivism." 

A  system  of  social  science  is  the  last  thing  to  be  looked 
for  in  the  works  of  Comte.  Such  a  system  must  be  the 
ripe  result  and  not  the  beginning  of  the  science,  and  we 
have  no  right  to  expect  one  in  the  writings  of  its  great 
pioneer. 

Comte  did  indeed  put  forth  considerable  effort  in  this 
field  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  give  the  chief  outlines 
of  the  society  of  the  future.  In  all  this  he  failed  piti- 
fully. Those  who  know  only  of  his  ideas  in  this  field  can 
form  no  opinion  of  his  tremendous  contribution  to 
modern  intellectual  advancement. 

Comte  did  two  things.  He  did  them  so  well,  they  will 
forever  remain  as  monuments  of  his  genius.  They  were 
great  things  and  will  rank  always  as  among  the  notable 
achievements  of  the  mind  of  man. 

These  two  things  are:  The  law  of  human  develop- 
ment, and  the  classification  of  the  sciences.  They  will 
form  the  respective  subjects  of  this  and  the  following 
chapter. 

Thanks  to  the  labors  of  Harriet  Martineau,  English 

33 


34:  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

readers  have  an  advantage  over  the  readers  of  the  French 
original.  In  her  translation  she  has  condensed  the  six 
French  volumes  into  one  English  one  and  sacrificed  lit- 
tle but  the  repetition  incidental  to  work  done  in  the  form 
of  lectures,  and  extending  over  a  period  of  twenty 
years. 

Comte's  "Law  of  Human  Development"  is  funda- 
mental to  his  whole  philosophy  and  it  throws  a  flood  of 
thought  on  the  phenomena  of  social  and  scientific  pro- 
gress. 

As  to  the  nature  of  this  law  we  will  allow  its  dis- 
coverer, through  the  medium  of  Miss  Martineau,  to 
speak  for  himself.  The  third  paragraph  of  the  first 
chapter  reads  as  follows: 

"From  the  study  of  the  development  of  human  intel- 
ligence, in  all  directions,  and  through  all  times,  the  dis- 
covery arises  of  a  great  fundamental  law,  to  which  it  is 
necessarily  subject,  and  which  has  a  solid  foundation  of 
proof,  both  in  the  facts  of  our  organization  and  in  our 
historical  experience.  The  law  is  this:  That  each  of  our 
leading  conceptions — each  branch  of  our  knowledge — 
passes  successively  through  three  different  theoretical 
conditions:  the  Theological,  or  fictitious;  the  Metaphysi- 
cal, or  abstract ;  and  the  Scientific,  or  positive.  In  other 
words,  the  human  mind,  by  its  nature,  employs  in  its 
progress  three  methods  of  philosophizing,  the  character 
of  which  is  essentially  different,  and  even  radically  op- 
posed; viz.,  the  theological  method,  the  metaphysical 
and  the  positive.  Hence  arises  three  philosophies,  or 
general  systems  of  conceptions  on  the  aggregate  of  Phe- 
nomena, each  of  which  excludes  the  others.  The  first 
is  the  necessary  point  of  departure  of  the  human  under- 
standing; the  third  is  its  fixed  and  definite  state.  The 
second  is  merely  a  state  of  transition." 


COMTE'S  LAW  OF  HUMAN  DEVELOPMENT          35 

The  insight  displayed  in  the  above  passage  is  all  the 
more  amazing  when  one  remembers  it  was  written  in  the 
pre-Darwinian  days.  Here  is  convincingly  stated,  what 
has  since  become  universally  admitted  among  scientific 
men,  that  theology  belongs  to  the  infancy  of  the  human 
race.  Thus  has  theology,  which  was  described  by  Mr. 
Gladstone,  as  "the  crown  and  flower  of  human  knowl- 
edge," become  the  pariah  of  the  scientific  world. 

No  writer,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Karl  Marx 
or  Lester  F.  Ward,  recognized  more  clearly  the  es- 
sentially reactionary  character  of  theological  thinking. 
When  Comte  spoke  of  it  as  "theological,  or  fictitious," 
he  dealt  it  a  terrific  blow.  Only  such  an  iconoclast  could 
have  founded  modern  sociology. 

Comte's  "law  of  human  development"  is  a  radical 
rupture  with  the  general  mental  attitude  of  his  day,  and 
in  this  lies  its  chief  virtue.  Men  who  trod  mincingly, 
and  timidly  avoided  the  impact  of  the  prejudices  of  their 
time,  have  done  useful  work,  but  they  could  never  be 
great  pioneers  in  the  world  of  thought.  The  judicious 
time-server  is  swallowed  in  the  maze  of  his  own  apolo- 
getics. Only  the  fearless  man  becomes  a  milestone  in 
the  march  of  mind. 

We  might  now  proceed  to  the  further  statement  of 
Comte's  "law"  in  language  of  our  own  which  would 
avoid  the  grievous  blunders  into  which  the  brilliant 
Frenchman  fell,  but  again  we  will  quote  his  painstaking 
translator : 

"In  the  theological  state,  the  human  mind,  seeking  the 
essential  nature  of  beings,  the  first  and  .final  causes  (the 
origin  and  purpose)  of  all  effects — in  short  absolute 


36  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

knowledge — supposes  all  phenomena  to  be  produced  by 
the  immediate  action  of  supernatural  beings. 

"In  the  metaphysical  state,  which  is  only  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  first,  the  mind  supposes,  instead  of  super- 
natural beings,  abstract  forces,  veritable  entities  (that 
is,  personified  abstractions)  inherent  in  all  beings,  and 
capable  of  producing  all  phenomena.  What  is  called 
the  explanation  of  phenomena  is,  in  this  stage,  a  mere 
reference  of  each  to  its  proper  entity. 

"In  the  final,  the  positive  state,  the  mind  has  given 
over  the  vain  search  after  absolute  notions,  the  origin 
and  destination  of  the  universe,  and  the  causes  of  phe- 
nomena, and  applies  itself  to  the  study  of  their  laws — 
that  is,  their  invariable  relations  of  succession  and  re- 
semblance. Reasoning  and  observation  duly  combined, 
are  the  means  of  this  knowledge.  What  is  now  under- 
stood when  we  speak  of  an  explanation  of  facts  is  sim- 
ply the  establishment  of  a  connection  between  single 
phenomena  and  some  general  facts  the  number  of  which 
continually  diminishes  with  the  progress  of  science." 

In  the  above  passage  the  fundamental  error  into 
which  Comte  fell  and  which  stamps  and  vitiates  all  his 
writings,  stands  plainly  forth.  In  this  glaring  and  per- 
sistent blunder  is  the  explanation  of  the  tardy  recogni- 
tion of  the  real  merit  of  his  labors.  But  for  this  error 
Comte  might  have  had  almost  as  rapid  and  signal  a 
triumph  as  Darwin  himself. 

Darwin's  errors  were  incidental  and  advanced  with 
small  enthusiasm.  His  hopeless  theory  of  Pangenisis, 
for  example,  is  presented  as  a  "provisional"  theory,  and 
its  relegation  to  the  scrap  heap  in  no  way  affected  the 
bulk  of  Darwin's  work. 

Comte's  errors,  on  the  contrary,  crop  out  everywhere 
and  are  defended  by  him  with  an  emphasis  often  lack- 
ing when  he  is  advancing  his  really  great  truths. 


COMTE'S  LAW  OF  HUMAN  DEVELOPMENT          37 

Comte's  grand  error  lies  in  his  failure  to  differentiate 
between  "efficient  causes"  and  "final  causes" — causa 
finales  and  causa  efficientes.  Final  causes  belong  to 
theology  and  are  properly  denounced  and  discarded,  but 
efficient  causes  are  essentially  a  part  of  the  scientific 
method,  and  should  have  been  explained  and  defended. 
In  his  violent  reaction  against  the  former,  Comte  al- 
lowed himself  to  be  drawn  into  a  sweeping  inclusion  of 
the  latter.  The  unfortunate  but  inevitable  result  has 
been  that  many  scientific  men  have  cursorily  read  his 
work,  and  regarded  him  with  suspicion,  when,  had  they 
looked  beyond  his  error  they  would  have  hailed  him  as 
a  brother.  With  the  lapse  of  time  this  mistaken  esti- 
mate is  being  corrected  and  Comte  is  coming  to  his  own. 

The  limits  of  this  work  do  not  allow  an  extensive 
treatment  of  this  question  and  the  reader  is  now  re- 
ferred for  its  further  development  to  the  earlier  part  of 
the  first  chapter  of  Lester  F.  Ward's  two-volume  mas- 
terpiece: "Dynamic  Sociology,"  a  work  about  which  we 
shall  have  much  to  say  later  and  from  which  we  now 
quote : 

"While,  to  the  mind  of  all  other  philosophers,  the  ar- 
bitrary, original,  and  the  final  cause  stand  in  plainest  con- 
trast with  the  necessary,  efficient,  or  mechanical  cause, 
the  former  being,  as  Comte  justly  asserts,  the  basis  of 
all  theological  reasoning,  while  the  latter  seems  the  al- 
most indispensible  postulate  of  science  itself,  he  fails 
utterly  to  perceive  any  difference  between  them,  and  is 
found  attacking  with  equal  vehemence  conclusions  flow- 
ing from  the  one  and  the  other  class." 

And  again : 

"As  a  further  and  necessary  consequence  of  this  ob- 


38  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

stinate  blindness,  we  find  Comte  multiplying  the  number 
of  what  he  calls  'primordial'  problems  beyond  the  lim- 
its of  finite  powers,  impossible  for  man  ever  to  solve, 
and  fit  subjects  only  for  the  labors  of  theologians  and 
metaphysicians.  Among  these  it  is  amusing  to  notice 
quite  a  number  which  were  actually  solved  during 
Comte's  own  life-time.  For  example,  he  repeatedly  as- 
serts that  the  chemical  constitutions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  belong  to  this  class  of  insoluble  problems;  yet, 
even  while  he  wrote,  Kirchhoff  and  Fraunhofer  were 
collecting  from  the  sun  and  the  stars  the  evidence  of 
their  composition." 

Thus  did  Comte  join  together  tilings  which  are,  and 
should  be  kept,  separate. 

For  illustration  of  their  essential  difference  let  us  take 
the  origin  of  the  earth.  According  to  the  theologian 
who  explains  the  origin  of  the  earth  in  terms  of  its 
purpose — its  final  cause,  the  earth  was  created  by  the 
Almighty  to  be  the  dwelling  place  of  man,  while  the 
scientist  smiles  at  so  childish  an  explanation,  and  seeks 
the  efficient  mechanical  cause  of  its  origin  in  the  nebu- 
lar hypothesis  of  Kant  and  Laplace. 

All  this,  however,  does  not  affect  the  validity  or  value 
of  Comte's  "law  of  development"  to  which  we  now  re- 
turn. 

There  are  two  interesting  and  important  features  of 
this  law  which  are  presented  by  Comte  as  its  grounds 
and  evidences.  The  first  we  shall  mention  briefly  here 
as  it  will  come  up  for  further  consideration  in  the  en- 
suing chapter.  This  is  that  every  science,  in  the  course 
of  its  progress,  passes  through  the  three  stages  or  pe- 
riods to  which  the  human  race  itself  is  subject.  Every 


COMTE'S  LAW  OF  HUMAN  DEVELOPMENT          39 

science  is,  at  its  birth,  theological  in  character.  Later 
it  throws  off  the  swaddling  clothes  of  its  babyhood  and 
appears  in  the  metaphysical  garb  of  its  youth.  Ulti- 
mately it  emerges  into  the  full  dress  of  its  scientific  ma- 
turity. Says  Comte: 

"There  is  no  science  which,  having  attained  the 
positive  stage,  does  not  bear  the  marks  of  having 
passed  through  the  others.  Some  time  since  it 
was  (whatever  it  might  be  now)  composed,  as  we  can 
now  perceive,  of  metaphysical  abstractions :  and,  further 
back  in  the  course  of  time,  it  took  its  form  from  theo- 
logical conceptions.  We  shall  have  only  too  much  oc- 
casion to  see,  as  we  proceed,  that  our  most  advanced 
sciences  still  bear  very  evident  marks  of  the  two  earlier 
periods  through  which  they  passed." 

Before  we  proceed  to  the  second  evidence  we  will 
consider  Comte's  usage  of  the  word  "positive."  This  is 
important  inasmuch  as  it  is  Comte's  most  frequently  used 
term  and  indeed  appears  in  a  title  role,  Comte  naming 
his  system  "The  Positive  Philosophy." 

Fortunately  Comte's  use  of  the  term  and  its  popular 
usage  are  practically  identical.  In  popular  usage  "posi- 
tive" is  chiefly  an  expression  of  emphasis.  We  say  a 
thing  is  positively  so  when  we  feel  sure  of  the  fact  or 
facts.  We  are  positive  of  a  thing  when  it  can  be  demon- 
strated, as  in  the  case  of  the  majority  of  universally 
accepted  scientific  truths,  especially  in  the  experimental 
sciences.  Fitting  examples  are,  the  functions  of  the 
bodily  organs  as  demonstrated  in  physiology,  and  the 
composition  of  bodies  and  gases  as  shown  by  chemical 
analysis  and  synthesis.  Thus  positive  and  scientific,  as 
adjectives,  are  practically  synonymous,  and  are  fre- 
quently so  used  by  Comte.  There  is  not  the  least  excuse 


40  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

for  any  attempt  to  cloud  with  mystery,  the  word  posi- 
tive, as  it  is  used  by  the  founder  of  modern  sociology. 

The  second  ground  of  the  "law  of  human  develop- 
ment" has  to  do  with  the  individual.  Comte  holds  that 
the  three  periods  of  race  development  are  re-enacted  in 
the  life  of  the  individual.  He  states  it  as  follows: 

"The  progress  of  the  individual  mind  is  not  only  an 
illustration,  but  an  indirect  evidence  of  that  of  the  gen- 
eral mind.  The  point  of  departure  of  the  individual 
and  the  race  being  the  same,  the  phases  of  the  mind  of 
man  correspond  to  the  epochs  of  the  mind  of  the  race. 
Now  each  of  us  is  aware,  if  he  looks  back  upon  his  own 
history,  that  he  was  a  theologian  in  his  childhood,  a 
metaphysician  in  his  youth  and  a  natural  philosopher 
in  his  manhood.  All  men  who  are  up  to  their  age  can 
verify  this  for  themselves." 

Of  course,  it  is  obvious  that  a  person  still  in  the  thrall 
of  theological  beliefs  would  present  no  evidence  of  the 
operation  of  this  law.  Such  would  only  constitute  ex- 
amples of  mental  development  arrested  at  the  sucking 
bottle  stage. 

It  is  well  worth  noting  that  this  is  not  the  only  "re- 
capitulation theory"  in  modern  thought.  Comte's  theory 
that  the  experience  of  the  individual  recapitulates  the 
experience  of  the  race  applies  to  the  mental  world. 
Modern  biology  gives  a  similar  theory  in  explanation  of 
certain  evolutionary  phenomena  in  the  organic  world. 

The  biological  recapitulation  theory  broached  by  Wal- 
ther  and  Meckel,  and  still  more  cogently  advocated  by 
Ernest  Von  Baer  early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  found 
its  chief  exponent  in  Ernest  Haeckel.  This  theory  be- 
longs to  the  science  of  embryology  in  which  Haeckel 


COMTE'S  LAW  OF  HUMAN  DEVELOPMENT          41 

is  one  of  the  highest  authorities.  The  theory,  briefly 
stated,  is,  that  the  chief  stages  of  organic  evolutionary 
development  which  mark  the  rise  from  moneron  to  man 
are  repeated  or  recapitulated  in  the  nine  months'  life  his- 
tory of  the  human  embryo  before  the  infant  comes  forth 
into  the  world.  This  "biogenetic  law"  as  Haeckel  calls 
it,  is  well  stated  and  illustrated  by  his  fellow  countryman 
and  fellow  scientist,  William  Boelsche,  in  "The  Evolution 
of  Man."  "The  biogenetic  law,"  says  Boelsche,  "recog- 
nizes in  the  embryo  the  portrait  of  the  ancestor." 

Bolsche  also  shows  that  the  "biogenetic  law"  is  not 
limited  in  its  operation  to  the  human  family  but  is  ac- 
tive throughout  the  animal  kingdom.  He  says: 

"No  matter  what  embryo  we  may  study,  whether  it 
is  that  of  a  lizard,  a  snake,  a  crocodile,  a  turtle,  ostrich, 
stork,  chicken,  canary,  duckbill,  marsupial,  whale,  rab- 
bit, horse,  or  finally  a  long-tailed  American  monkey  or 
anthropoid  (man-like)  gibbon — the  embryo  at  a  certain 
stage  of  its  development  always  shows  a  perceptible  tad- 
pole or  fish  stage.  Its  neck  shows  the  mark  of  the  gills. 
Furthermore,  the  limbs  which  the  embryos  are  just 
forming  at  this  stage  have  likewise  the  plain  outlines 
of  fins." 

This  theory  has  also  been  clearly  and  forcefully  stated 
by  an  American  who  has  laid  the  people  of  his  country 
under  heavy  and  lasting  obligations  by  his  brilliant  and 
thoroughly  human  contributions  toward  a  higher  and 
nobler  standard  of  education — Professor  J.  Howard 
Moore,  instructor  in  biology  at  the  Crane  High  school. 
Says  Professor  Moore,  in  his  "Universal  Kinship": 

"The  embryonic  development  of  a  human  being  is 
not  different  in  kind  from  the  embryonic  development 


42  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

of  any  other  animal.  Every  human  being  at  the  begin- 
ning of  his  organic  existence  is  a  protozoan,  about 
1/125  inch  in  diameter ;  at  another  stage  of  development 
he  is  a  tiny  sac-shaped  mass  of  cells  without  blood  or 
nerves,  the  gastrula ;  at  another  stage  he  is  a  worm,  with 
a  pulsating  tube  instead  of  a  heart,  and  without  head, 
neck,  spinal  column,  or  limbs ;  at  another  stage  he  has 
as  a  backbone,  a  rod  of  cartilage  extending  along  the 
back,  and  a  faint  nerve  cord,  as  in  amphioxus,  the  lowest 
of  the  vertebrates;  at  another  stage  he  is  a  fish  with  a 
two-chambered  heart,  mesonephric  kidneys,  and  gill-s!its, 
with  gill  arteries  leading  to  them,  just  as  in  fishes;  at 
another  stage  he  is  a  reptile  with  a  three-chambered 
heart,  and  voiding  his  excreta  through  a  cloaca  like 
other  reptiles ;  and  finally,  when  he  enters  upon  post- 
natal sins  and  actualities,  he  is  a  sprawling,  squalling, 
unreasoning  quadruped.  The  human  larva  from  the 
fifth  to  the  seventh  month  of  development  is  covered 
with  a  thick  growth  of  hair  and  has  a  true  caudal  ap- 
pendage, like  the  monkey.  At  this  stage  the  embryo 
has  in  all  thirty-eight  vertebrae,  nine  of  which  are  cau- 
dal, and  the  great  toe  extends  at  right  angles  to  the 
other  toes,  and  is  not  longer  than  the  other  toes,  but 
shorter,  as  in  the  ape." 

This  biological  theory  is  given  at  length  here  not  only 
because  it  supports  Comte's  theory  by  analogy  but  be- 
cause it  seems  highly  probable  that  the  two  principles 
are  not  mere  analogies  but  have  a  much  closer  relation- 
ship. 

In  these  materialistic  days  we  have  learned  that 
thought  is  a  function  of  the  brain  and  that  the  charac- 
ter and  quality  of  the  thinking  is  very  largely,  probably 
entirely,  dependent  on  brain  organization. 

If  it  be  true,  as  the  biogenetic  law  holds,  that  the 
human  creature  comes  into  the  world  with  the  brain  de- 


COMTE'S  LAW  OF  HUMAN  DEVELOPMENT          43 

velopment  and  therefore  the  mental  equipment  of  a 
rather  remote  savage  ancestor,  we  may  cease  to  wonder 
that  theological  beliefs  had  a  peculiar  attraction  for  us 
in  our  early  years. 


CHAPTER  V 
COMTE'S  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  SCIENCES 

In  Comte's  system,  the  thing  which  stands  second, 
if  indeed,  it  is  not  equal,  in  importance  to  the  "law  of 
human  development"  is  his  classification  of  the  sciences. 
As  will  appear,  it  is  important  for  sociology  because  it 
reveals  the  character  of  the  science  of  society  and  places 
it  in  its  proper  relation  to  other  sciences.  Thus  we  get 
an  estimate  of  its  scope  and  importance  as  a  branch  or 
department  of  knowledge. 

In  this  field  of  classification  Comte  did  an  immense 
service,  not  only  to  sociology  but  to  all  the  sciences. 
Especially  did  he  serve  the  cause  of  education  by  organ- 
izing scientific  knowledge  in  a  comprehensive  order,  lift- 
ing it  forever  out  of  the  confused,  scattering  and  dis- 
jointed maze  in  which  he  found  it. 

In  classifying  and  arranging  the  sciences  in  their  re- 
spective positions,  Comte  did  not  place  them  side  by 
side  as  so  many  co-equal  brothers.  Rather  he  placed  them 
in  position  of  sequence  or  succession  comparing  closely 
with  the  relation  of  parent  and  offspring.  One  science  is 
placed  at  the  head.  The  next  is  derived  from  it,  and 
is  dependent  upon  it.  In  this  way  Comte  traces  the 
main  line  of  descent  throughout  the  entire  range  of  hu- 
man knowledge.  This  achievement  alone  will  assure  the 
great  Frenchman  a  permanent  niche  in  the  Pantheon  of 
the  immortals. 

The  main  principle  of  the  classification  is  the  evolu- 
tionary principle  later  made  familiar  by  Spencer.  The 

44 


COMTE'S  CLASSIFICATION  OF  SCIENCES  45 

list  begins  with  the  most  general  and  therefore  the  most 
inclusive  of  all  sciences.  It  then  proceeds  step  by  step 
to  the  less  and  less  general,  but  more  and  more  complex 
sciences.  It  thus  conforms  to  Spencer's  formula  of  pro- 
gress from  the  simple  to  the  complex. 

As  Lester  F.  Ward  btates  it:  "Each  new  science,  as 
we  descend  the  scale,  is  less  general,  and  therefore  is 
embraced  within  the  limits  of  the  preceding,  to  which 
it  stands  in  the  true  logical  relation  of  species  to  genus, 
while  at  -the  same  time  possessing  special  characteristics 
of  its  own  which  distinguish  it  from  all  above  it." 

Here  is  the  order  as  it  appears  in  the  Positive  Philos- 
ophy: 

(1)  Astronomy. 

(2)  Physics. 

(3)  Chemistry. 

(4)  Biology. 

(5)  (Cerebral  Biology;  i.  e. :  psychology.) 

(6)  Sociology. 

It  will  be  easily  seen  how  thoroughly  this  arrange- 
ment complies  with  the  idea  of  a  decreasing  generality 
and  increasing  complexity.  It  also,  and  for  this  very 
reason,  realizes  the  notion  of  each  succeeding  science 
being  "embraced,"  as  Ward  uses  the  term  in  the  above 
quotation,  in  its  predecessor.  Astronomy  deals  with 
celestial  bodies  and  the  laws  relating  to  them.  Physics 
deals  with  molar  and  molecular  processes.  Chemistry 
deals  with  atomic  processes.  In  the  natural  order  of 
things  all  these  come  before  life  which  is  the  subject  of 
biology.  Biology  dealing  with  organic  processes  precedes 
and  is  the  parent  of  psychology  which  deals  with  psychic 
processes.  Out  of  these  mental  processes  come  social 


46  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

relations  and  social  processes  which  are  the  subject-mat- 
ter of  sociology. 

It  may  well  be  that  Comte's  chief  claim  to  fame  may 
finally  rest  on  his  having-  been  the  first  man  to  recog- 
nize the  grand  unity  of  all  things,  from  the  whirling 
nebulae  to  systems  of  taxation.  In  this  respect  Comte 
has  had  but  one  successor,  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  the 
author  of  the  "Synthetic  Philosophy."  When  two  men, 
whose  genius  is  of  the  highest  order,  labor  upon  the 
same  problems,  dealing  with  the  same  subject-matter,  it 
would  be  somewhat  surprising  if  the  results  did  not 
bear  some  general  resemblance.  This  is  precisely  what 
happened  in  the  case  of  Comte  and  Spencer.  This  gen- 
eral resemblance  has  led  some  to  the  mistaken  conclu- 
sion that  Spencer  was  merely  a  disciple  of  his  French 
predecessor,  and  this  conclusion  has. been  warmly  and 
justly  repudiated  by  Mr.  Spencer  himself. 

Spencer,  in  his  efforts  to  disconnect  himself  from 
Comte,  has  undoubtedly  gone  to  the  opposite  extreme. 
He  denied  flatly  even  a  general  resemblance  between  his 
own  classification  of  the  sciences  and  the  classification 
of  Comte.  The  documents  which  throw  the  greatest 
light  on  this  subject  are  two  letters  which  passed  be- 
tween Mr.  Spencer  and  Lester  F.  Ward,  which  letters 
are  reproduced  as  a  very  extensive  foot  note  on  page  65 
of  Ward's  "Pure  Sociology." 

In  the  year  1895  Mr.  Spencer  received  and  glanced 
ever  the  essay  by  Ward  on  "The  Place  of  Sociology 
Among  the  Sciences."  Mr.  Spencer  wrote  to  the  author 
saying  that  in  glancing  through  it  he  was  "startled  by 
some  of  its  statements.  Spencer  declares  himself 
amazed  by  Ward's  statement  that,  "Spencer  himself, 


COMTE'S  CLASSIFICATION  OF  SCIENCES  47 

notwithstanding  all  his  efforts  to  overthrow  it,  actually 
adopted  it  (Comte's  classification)  in  the  arrangement 
of  the  sciences  in  his  Synthetic  Philosophy."  Against 
this  statement  Mr.  Spencer  argues  at  some  length.  He 
explains  that  he  omitted  dealing  with  inorganic  nature 
in  his  "Synthetic  Philosophy*'  simply  because  the  scheme, 
even  as  it  stood,  was  too  extensive. 

"Two  volumes  were  thus  omitted — a  volume  on  as- 
tronomy and  a  volume  on  geology.  Had  it  been  possi- 
ble to  write  these  in  addition  to  those  undertaken,  the 
series  would  have  run — astronomy,  geology,  biology, 
psychology,  sociology,  ethics.  Now  in  this  series,  those 
marked  in  italics  do  not  appear  in  the  Comtean  classi- 
fication at  all.  In  the  part  of  the  Synthetic  Philosophy  as 
it  now  stands,  the  only  correspondence  with  the  Com- 
tean classification  is  that  biology  comes  before  sociology ; 
and  surely  any  one  would  see  that  in  rational  order  the 
phenomena  presented  by  a  living  individual  must  come 
before  that  presented  by  an  assemblage  of  such  living 
individuals.  It  requires  no  leading  of  Comte  for  any 
one  to  see  this." 

Notwithstanding  this  sweeping  disclaimer  on  the  part 
of  Mr.  Spencer  the  position  taken  by  Mr.  Ward  in  the 
first  place  remains  unshaken.  This  will  appear  when  we 
follow  Mr.  Ward's  example  and  reproduce  side  by  side 
the  order  of  the  classification  adopted  by  each: 

SYSTEM  OF  AUGUSTE  COMTE.  SYSTEM  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER 

1.  Astronomy.  1.  Astronomy. 

2.  Physics.  2.  Geology. 

3.  Chemistry.  3.  Biology. 

4.  Biology,  including  4.  Psychology. 

5.  Cerebral  Biology.  5.  Sociology. 

6.  Sociology.  6.  Ethics. 

7.  Ethics. 


48  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

Both  Comte  and  Spencer  begin  with  astronomy.  The 
first  difference  appears  with  the  second  choice.  Comte 
follows  astronomy  with  physics  and  chemistry;  Mr. 
Spencer  chooses  to  occupy  this  space  with  the  science 
of  geology.  In  thus  diverging  the  advantage  is  un- 
doubtedly on  the  side  of  the  Frenchman.  This  classi- 
fication of  the  sciences  is  not  intended  to  include  the 
name  of  every  science,  but  only  of  those  which  make 
the  trunk  of  the  tree;  the  branches  and  twigs  fall  into 
their  proper  places  and  are  included  by  implication.  All 
Comte's  terms  in  the  series  are  sections  of  the  trunk) 
with  the  exception  of  the  last.  Mr.  Spencer  on  the  con- 
trary, after  beginning  with  the  primary  section  of  the 
trunk,  introduces  a  branch,  as  geology  has  no  proper 
place  in  such  general  categories.  As  Ward  very  prop- 
erly maintains,  in  such  a  general  classification  geology 
would  be  a  subdivision  of  astronomy,  just  as  zoology 
is  a  branch  of  biology  and  not  entitled  to  a  place 
in  this  list.  After  this  departure  there  comes  a  reunion 
at  biology.  Mr.  Spencer  charges  that  the  division  is  re- 
opened immediately  following  biology,  inasmuch  as  he 
places  psychology  as  next  in  succession,  whereas  Comte 
does  not  include  psychology  at  all.  In  this  Mr.  Spencer 
is  mistaken.  His  mistake  would  have  been  spared  had 
he  read  his  French  predecessor  more  closely. 

Psychology  is  fully  treated  by  Comte  under  the  head 
of  Cerebral  Biology.  It  would  have  been  better  had 
Comte  given  cerebral  biology  a  line  to  itself  in  his  list, 
but  his  not  doing  so  does  not  justify  the  assertion  that 
he  omitted  it  from  his  scheme.  On  the  contrary,  his 
reason  given  for  the  omission  stamps  him  as  one  of  the 
most  daring  thinkers  of  his  time.  Comte  explains  that 


COMTE'S  CLASSIFICATION  OF  SCIENCES  49 

his  refusal  to  separate  biology  and  psychology  is  due 
to  his  belief  that  they  are  inseparable.  He  takes  the 
essentially  materialistic  position  that  the  mental  pro- 
cesses are  based  in  the  organization  of  the  brain,  and 
that  all  mental  phenomena  are  dependent  on  physiologi- 
cal organization  and  function.  In  this  proclamation 
Comte  clearly  anticipated  the  science  of  our  time.  The 
rest  of  the  categories  are  identical.  Spencer  concludes 
with  ethics  and  Comte  added  ethics  as  the  final  term 
of  his  series  in  his  later  work  "Polytique  Positive."  In 
this  the  two  philosophers  fell  into  a  common  error — an 
error  of  precisely  the  same  nature  as  that  which  led 
Spencer  to  place  geology  in  his  category.  Ethics,  as 
we  are  coming  to  see  more  clearly  every  day,  is  merely 
a  division  of  sociology  and  has  no  more  right  to  fol- 
low sociology  in  this  main  classification  than  botany 
would  have  to  follow  biology. 

Comte  has  several  methods  by  which  the  consistency 
of  his  classification  is  tested.  The  first  has  already  been 
given — consisting  of  procession  from  general  to  special, 
or  from  the  simple  to  the  complex. 

Another  test  which  Comte  regards  as  important  and 
for  which  he  claims  complete  originality  is  as  follows: 
The  three  principal  methods  of  science  are  observation, 
experiment  and  comparison.  As  we  proceed  in  Comte's 
hierarchy  from  Astronomy  at  the  beginning  to  Ethics 
at  the  end  there  is,  as  Comte  argues,  a  progressive  ap- 
plication of  these  methods  of  research.  In  Astronomy, 
the  most  general  and  simple  of  the  sciences,  observation 
alone  is  available;  in  Physics,  which  comes  next,  experi- 
mentation is  possible  as  well  as  observation.  When  we 


50  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

reach  chemistry,  experiment  is  the  chief  weapon,  while 
in  biology,  sociology  and  ethics  we  depend  mainly  on 
comparison. 

We  now  come  to  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  Comte's 
theories.  He  insists  that  another  test  of  the  validity 
of  his  scientific  categories  is  to  .be  found  in  the  state 
of  positiveness  at  which  any  science  has  arrived.  Each 
science,  like  each  individual  and  like  the  race  itself, 
passes  through  the  three  successive  stages,  theological, 
metaphysical  and  positive. 

Astronomy,  the  most  general  of  all,  has  passed 
through  the  theological  and  metaphysical  stages  and  has 
now  reached  the  positive  or  scientific  stage.  This  is 
undoubtedly  the  case  though  the  uninformed  often  make 
their  first  appeal  in  behalf  of  religious  beliefs  to  the 
majesty  and  grandeur  of  the  heavens.  There  is  in 
reality  no  department  of  human  thought  where  the  su- 
pernatural has  been  so  completely  abolished  and  natural 
law  recognized  as  supreme,  as  in  astronomy.  It  is  a 
long  time  since  any  scientist  of  repute  tried  to  find  in 
astronomy  a  niche  in  which  to  hide  his  gods.  Lester 
F.  Ward  well  says:  "About  the  last  instance  of  this 
kind  was  that  of  Newton,  who  brought  in  the  divine 
agency  to  account  for  so  much  of  observation  as  his 
theory  failed  to  explain,  and  this  is  now  set  down  as 
one  of  the  unfortunate  weak  points  in  his  biography  to 
be  forgotten  as  fast  as  possible/' 

Physics,  which  comes  next  in  generality  and  next  in 
the  classification,  although  next  most  positive,  is  still 
in  the  grip  of  metaphysical  conceptions.  In  biology, 
metaphysics  and  theology  still  have  a  hold,  but  every  day 


COMTE'S  CLASSIFICATION  OF  SCIENCES  51 

sees  the  biological  sciences  become  more  positive  and 
less  theological  and  metaphysical. 

Now  we  come  to  that  science  of  which  Comte  is 
generally  conceded  to  be  the  founder,  the  science  of 
society — sociology.  Comte  justly  declares  this  late-born 
and  highly  complex  science  to  be  still  in  the  theological 
and  metaphysical  stage,  with  theological  ideas  dominat- 
ing. This  is  in  itself  proof  that  the  science  is  in  its 
infancy,  just  as  a  theological  type  of  mind  was  insep- 
arable from  the  infancy  of  the  race,  and  seems  to  be 
inseparable  from  the  infancy  of  the  individual.  In  ethics 
the  case  is  even  worse. 

The  whole  development  of  society  is  popularly  sup- 
posed to  be  subject  to  providence ;  to  control  of  a  divine 
will  which  is  independent  of  law  and  the  fiats  of  which 
cannot  be  prevised  or  even  understood.  This  means 
death  to  science  wherever  it  may  be  found  and  the  his- 
tory of  science  is  the  story  of  the  overthrow  of  this 
theological  position  in  one  field  after  another.  This 
was  accomplished  by  the  discovery  of  those  laws  of  na- 
ture— or  "methods  of  nature"  as  Lewes,  Comte's  great 
disciple,  called  them — which  really  prevail  everywhere 
in  the  universe. 

Newton,  Kant  and  Laplace  drove  theology  out  of  as- 
tronomy by  discovering  gravity  and  nebulae.  Mayer, 
Helmholtz  and  Lavoisier  emancipated  chemistry  from 
superstition  with  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the 
indestructibility  of  matter.  Lamarck,  Darwin  and  a 
great  army  of  their  colleagues  and  disciples  have  since 
Comte's  day  driven  the  shadowy  spectres  of  theology 
out  of  biology  with  evolution  and  natural  selection. 
Comte  struggled  to  do  as  much  for  Sociology  and  failed 


52  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

completely.     His  great  merit  is  that  he  saw  the  need 
of  such  a  science  and  foresaw  the  nature  of  its  task. 

Later  in  this  book  we  shall  deal  at  considerable  length 
with  the  sociology  of  Lester  F.  Ward.  While  we  are 
considering,  however,  the  classifications  of  Comte  and 
Spencer,  it  seems  fitting  to  present  the  classification 
which  Mr.  Ward  makes  the  basis  of  the  first  volume  of 
"Dynamic  Sociology."  Ward's  improvement  over  Comte 
and  Spencer  lies  in  his  reduction  of  the  number  of 
basic  concepts  to  three — primary,  secondary  and  ter- 
tiary. These  three  divisions  cover  the  evolution  of  the 
universe  and  its  contents.  These  are  called  by  Ward 
"aggregations"  and  are  as  follows: 

Primary   aggregation — inorganic — chemical   relations. 

Secondary  aggregation — organic — vital  relations  (in- 
cluding psychic  relations). 

Tertiary  aggregation — social — social  relations. 

It  will  be  observed  that  Ward's  primary  aggregation, 
dealing  with  inorganic  phenomena,  covers  the  field  oc- 
cupied by  Comte's  astronomy,  physics,  and  chemistry 
and  by  Spencer's  astronomy  and  geology.  The  second- 
ary aggregation  covers  Comte's  and  Spencer's  biology 
and  psychology  while  the  tertiary  aggregation  covers 
their  sociology  and  their  ill-considered  final  term,  ethics. 
This  classification  by  Ward  has  the  evolutionary  charac- 
ter and  the  great  simplicity  which  mark  all  his  work, 
and  which  constitutes  Mr.  Ward  the  greatest  living  so- 
ciologist. 

The  great  merit  of  Comte  and  Spencer  lies  in  the 
fact  mentioned  early  in  this  chapter.    They  alone  in  all 


COMTE'S  CLASSIFICATION  OF  SCIENCES  53 

hirtory  have  attempted  to,  and  in  great  part  succeeded 
in,  co-ordinating  the  field  of  universal  knowledge.  We 
are  beginning  to  understand  that  science  does  not  con- 
sist of  a  great  mass  of  facts,  but  rather  in  the  ascertain- 
ment of  the  laws  which  lie  behind  the  facts  and  which 
constitute  their  relationship  to  each  other.  The  supreme 
thing  in  science,  therefore,  is  not  the  facts  themselves 
but  rather  their  relationships,  and  as  the  universe  is  un- 
doubtedly one  grand  unity  all  its  phenomena  must  be  re- 
lated. A  real  investigation  of  the  universe  consists  in 
the  discovery  of  these  relationships  of  facts,  which  give 
their  meaning. 

Ward,  in  Dynamic  Sociology,  says: 

"From  the  array  of  great  names  which  philosophy 
and  science  have  given  to  the  world,  I  have  singled  out 
those  of  August  Comte  and  Herbert  Spencer  as  the 
subjects  of  these  brief  sketches,  not  so  much  in  conse- 
quence of  any  assumed  pre-eminence  in  these  two  men 
above  others,  as  because  they  alone,  of  all  thinkers  of 
the  world,  have  the  merit  of  having  carried  their  gen- 
eralizations from  the  phenomena  of  inorganic  nature  up 
to  those  of  human  action  and  social  life.  Of  all  the 
philosophers  that  humanity  has  brought  forth,  these  two 
alone  have  conceived  and  built  upon  the  broad  princi- 
ple of  the  absolute  unity  of  Nature  and  her  laws 
throughout  all  their  manifestations,  from  the  revolu- 
tions of  celestial  orbs  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires 
and  the  vicissitudes  of  social  customs  and  laws.  This 
grand  monistic  conception  is  the  final  crown  of  human 
thought,  and  was  required  to  round  out  philosophy  into 
a  form  of  symmetry,  whose  outlines,  at  least,  admit  of 
no  further  improvement." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  here  to  go  at  great  length  into 
the  absurd  Utopian  social  scheme  which  Comte  advanced. 


54  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

It  has  been  abandoned  everywhere  except  by  here  and 
there  a  belated  follower. 

He  was  opposed  to  the  use  of  that  powerful  weapon 
which  the  working  men  of  his  day  were  already  look- 
ing toward — political  action.  His  condemnation  of  this 
method  was  aimed  at  the  precursors  of  the  present  So- 
cial Democrats.  He  naively  explains  that  he  expects 
the  rich  to  support  him  in  this  attitude — as  they  did,  of 
course,  so  long  as  it  only  meant  political  action  by  their 
opponents. 

In  Comte's  positivist  society  there  were  to  be  four  so- 
cial orders.  Capitalists  to  supply  the  direction  of  indus- 
try; workers  to  give  their  labor  for  production;  women 
who  were  to  provide  social  feeling;  and  a  new  priest- 
hood of  philosophers  who  were  to  provide  education 
and  arbitrate  all  difficulties  between  capital  and  labor, 
and  persuade  labor  not  to  resort  to  force  or  political 
action  but  always  give  heed  to  the  moral  suasion  of 
their  superiors. 

Comte  wrote  a  great  deal  of  extravagant  and  sense- 
less flattery  of  women  in  general,  and  his  own  wife  in 
particular,  but  he  nevertheless  proposes  to  leave  about 
their  wrists  that  old  and  cankering  chain — economic  de- 
pendence. Women  are  to  be  supported  like  all  the 
other  orders,  by  the  labor  of  the  workers,  who  are  to 
be  men  only.  Capitalists  are  to  have  an  honored  place 
as  direcctors  of  industry,  and  there  is  some  considerable 
space  and  effort  devoted  to  the  folly  of  Socialists  who 
propose  to  abolish  them.  The  evolution  of  the  capital- 
ist from  a  useful  director  to  a  useless  parasitic  owner, 
although  it  had  begun,  was,  as  yet,  invisible  to  Comte. 


COMTE'S  CLASSIFICATION  OF  SCIENCES  55 

All  this  was  to  be  brought  about  by  positivist  clubs, 
which  were  to  be  established  in  all  the  cities  of  the 
civilized  world  and  have  for  their  object  the  propaganda 
of  this  philosophy  with  its  new-old  social  order. 

It  is  another  case  of  the  irony  of  fate  that  such  clubs 
and  groups  have  been  established  in  almost  every  town 
and  city  in  the  civilized  world — but  alas  they  are  not 
composed,  as  Comte  dreamed,  of  the  advocates  of  a 
four-class  society ;  they  are  made  up  of  the  Social  Dem- 
ocrats he  so  flyently  condemned.  And  these  Social 
Democrats  advocate  a  society  that  will  be  classless,  where 
women  will  be  economically  independent  of  men  or  each 
other,  where  the  capitalist  will  be  transformed  into  a 
worker,  no  matter  how  much  he  may  protest  against 
the  metamorphosis,  and  the  workers  will  direct  their 
own  affairs  without  requiring  hierarchies  of  alleged  su- 
periors to  do  it  for  them. 


CHAPTER  VI 

HERBERT   SPENCER — STRUCTURAL    SOCIOLOGY 

Of  Herbert  Spencer,  Ward  says,  "he  probably  de- 
served the  title  of  England's  greatest  philosopher,"  and 
he  adds,  "when  we  have  reached  England's  greatest 
in  any  achievement  of  mind,  we  have  usually  also 
reached  the  world's  greatest." 

Whatever  criticism  may  be  made  ol^he  sociologists, 
they  cannot  be  justly  charged  with  having  neglected 
the  subject  of  religion.  The  part  played  by  religion  and 
theology  in  the  social  process,  receives  very  serious 
and  extensive  treatment  at  the  hands  of  Comte,  Spen- 
cer, and  Ward. 

For  a  time  Spencer  was  hailed  with  enthusiasm  by 
many  religionists  because  he  presented  what  seemed 
to  be  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  age-long  war  be- 
tween religion  and  science.  Spencer  did  undoubtedly 
solve  this  problem.  He  pointed  out  that  the  struggle 
between  the  two  forces  was  due  to  a  misunderstanding 
as  to  their  proper  and  legitimate  territories.  In  order 
to  remove  this  misapprehension  forever  he  divided  the 
universe  into  two  parts — the  knowable  and  the  un- 
knowable. The  first,  he  held,  belonged  to  science ;  the 
second  must  be  reserved  for  religion. 

Religion  had  been  so  roughly  handled  by  science,  it 
had  been  driven  from  pillar  to  post,  until  the  promise 
to  religionists  of  a  field  which  was  to  be  left  to  their 
undisputed  sway  was  a  welcome  relief.  Their  cheer- 
fulness, however,  was  short-lived,  for  it  turned  out 

56 


SPENCER'S   STRUCTURAL.   SOCIOLOGY  57 

to  be  based  on  a  misunderstanding  of  Spencer's  idea. 
To  them  the  "unknowable"  was  identical  with  the 
"unknown." 

It  will  be  freely  admitted,  notwithstanding  our 
tremendous  advances  in  knowledge,  that  what  we 
know  is  infinitesimal  as  compared  with  what  we  do 
not  know.  It  was  the  realization  of  this  which  led  to 
Newton's  famous  simile  of  gathering  a  few  pebbles 
on  the  shores  of  the  great  ocean  of  knowledge.  If 
then,  according  to  Spencer,  this  vast  area  of  the  un- 
known was  to  be  left  to  the  unchallenged  possession 
of  religion  while  science  must  needs  be  content  with 
the  relatively  small  tract  of  the  known,  religion  might 
congratulate  itself  on  the  division^ 

The  error  lay  in  the  very  material  difference  between 
"the  unknown"  and  Mr.  Spencer's  "unknowable."  It 
is  quite  perceivable,  for  example,  that  the  population 
of  a  town  may  be  unknown,  and  yet  be  "knowable" 
by  means  of  an  effective  census.  A  thousand  illustra- 
tions might  be  given  to  show  that  vast  domains  of 
"the  unknown"  belong  to  science  because  they  are 
"knowable."  While  science  does  not  occupy  these 
domains  now,  they  will  surely  be  the  subjects  of  its 
future  conquests. 

It  has  been  the  efforts  of  religion  in  the  past  to 
prevent  science  from  conquering  parts  of  the  unknown 
and  adding  them  to  the  known  that  has  resulted  in 
what  White  calls  "The  Warfare  Between  Science  and 
Theology,"  and  which  Draper  describes  as  "The  Con- 
flict Between  Science  and  Religion."  It  might  be 
remarked  in  passing  that  the  recent  description  of 
so  profound  a  scholar  and  historian  as  Dr.  Draper  as 


58  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

"a  chatterer"  by  a  prominent  Catholic  has  done  noth- 
ing to  inspire  public  confidence  in  some  of  Dr.  Dra- 
per's critics.  Draper's  monumental  labors  can  hardly 
be  swept  aside  by  a  silly  remark. 

It  might  be  argued  that  the  religious  apologists  did 
not  attempt  to  hold  for  themselves  certain  territory 
as  belonging  to  "the  unknown,"  inasmuch  as  they 
claim  to  have  a  knowledge  of  it  even  to  minute  de- 
tails. It  cannot  be  admited,  however,  that  the  origin 
of  the  human  race  belonged  to  the  known,  in  the 
middle  ages,  on  the  strength  of  the  Babylonian  legend 
of  the  Garden  of  Eden.  If,  therefore,  the  religious 
world  persists  in  refusing  to  be  limited  to  Spencer's 
"unknowable,"  and  in  clinging  to  the  knowable  un- 
known, there  can  be  no  cessation  of  "The  Conflict 
Between  Science  and  Religion"  until  science  has  added 
victory  to  victory  and  religion,  reaping  defeat  upon 
defeat,  is  finally  driven  from  the  field. 

Spencer's  two  great  categories  really  mean  that  the 
claim  of  religion  is  limited  to  such  of  the  unknown 
as  cannot  be  known — the  unknowable,  while  to  scie'nce 
belongs  all  the  known  and  all  of  the  unknown  which 
is  knowable.  This  division  of  the  universe  is  pre- 
sented with  a  certain  under-current  of  grim  irony  as 
a  "reconciliation"  between  science  and  religion.  It 
is  really  a  polite  way  of  saying  that  science  means 
knowledge,  while  religion  is  a  synonym  for  ignorance. 
It  is  cleverly  compared  by  Ward  to  the  man  who 
offered  to  divide  the  house  with  his  wife — taking  the 
inside  for  himself  and  giving  the  outside  to  her. 

One  of  the   difficulties  which   sociologists  had  to 


SPENCER'S   STRUCTURAL    SOCIOLOGY  59 

overcome  was  due  to  the  notions  which  almost  all 
historians  entertained  as  to  what  constituted  history. 
In  order  to  understand  the  societies  of  the  present  it 
was  essential  to  know  the  societies  of  the  past  from 
which  they  came.  This  led  directly  to  a  searching  of 
the  pages  of  history.  The  search  was  fraught  with 
disappointment.  The  various  histories  teemed  with 
matters  of  small  importance,  while  things  of  vast 
importance  were  hardly  mentioned  or  completely 
ignored. 

Out  of  all  proportion  to  their  real  importance  v  as 
the  space  given  to  kings  and  courts,  with  their  petty 
intrigues  and  incessant  scandals.  Their  pages  reeked 
of  the  carnage  of  bloody  and  useless  wars  of  succes- 
sion. Armies  'Camped  on  every  page  and  battles 
were  fought  in  every  paragraph.  Almost  every  sen- 
tence was  stained  with  the  blood  of  a  soldier  or  the 
amour  of  a  king.  Back  and  forth  the  chapters  swung 
like  a  pendulum — from  court  to  camp  and  from  camp 
to  court.  This  type  of  history,  now  happily  obsolete, 
or  nearly  so,  has  been  well  stykd  "drum  and  trumpet 
history."  Among  the  pioneers  who  wrought  the 
change  Herbert  Spencer  holds  a  foremost  place.  We 
will  now  quote  a  paragraph  from  Spencer  which  in 
Professor  Small's  opinion  "marks  an  era  in  social 
consciousness." 

"That  which  constitutes  History,  properly  so  called, 
is  in  great  part  omitted  from  works  on  this  subject.  Only 
of  late  years  have  historians  commenced  giving  us,  in 
any  considerable  quantity,  the  truly  valuable  informa- 
tion. As  in  past  ages  the  king  was  everything  and  the 
people  nothing,  so  in  past  histories,  the  doings  of  the 
king  fill  the  entire  picture,  to  which  the  national  life 


60  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

forms  but  an  obscure  background.  While  only  now, 
when  the  welfare  of  nations  rather  than  of  rulers  is  be- 
coming the  dominant  idea,  are  historians  beginning  to 
ocupy  themselves  with  the  phenomena  of  social  progress. 
The  thing  it  really  concerns  us  to  know  is  the  Natural 
History  of  society.  We  want  all  facts  which  help  us 
to  understand  how  a  nation  has  grown  and  organized 
itself.  Among  these,  let  us  of  course  have  an  account 
of  its  government;  with  as  little  as  may  be  of  gossip 
about  the  men  who  officered  it,  and  as  much  as  possible 
about  the  structure,  principles,  methods,  prejudices,  cor- 
ruptions, etc.,  which  it  exhibited ;  and  let  this  account 
include  not  only  the  nature  and  actions  of  the  central 
government,  but  also  those  of  local  governments,  down 
to  their  minutest  ramifications.  Let  us  of  course  have 
a  parallel  description  of  the  ecclesiastical  government — 
it;-  oiganization,  its  conduct,  its  power,  its  relations  to 
the  state;  and,  accompanying  this,  the  ceremonial, 
creed,  and  religious  ideas — not  only  those  nominally  be- 
lieved, but  those  really  believed  and  acted  upon.  Let 
us  at  the  same  time  be  informed  of  the  control  exercised 
by  class  over  class,  as  displayed  in  social  observances — 
in  titles,  salutations,  and  forms  of  address.  Let  us 
know,  too,  what  were  all  the  customs  which  regulated 
the  popular  life  out-of-doors  and  indoors,  including  those 
concerning  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  and  the  relations 
of  parents  to  children.  The  superstitions,  also,  from 
the  more  important  myths  down  to  the  charms  in  com- 
mon use,  should  be  indicated.  Next  should  come  a  de- 
lineation of  the  industrial  system;  showing  to  what  ex- 
tent the  division  of  labor  was  carried;  what  was  the 
connection  between  employers  and  employed ;  what  were 
the  agencies  for  distributing  commodities;  what  were 
the  means  of  communication;  what  was  the  circulating 
medium.  Accompanying  all  which,  should  be  given  an 
account  of  the  industrial  arts  technically  considered; 
stating  the  processes  in  use,  and  the  quality  of  the  pro- 
ducts. Further,  the  intellectual  condition  of  the  nation 


SPENCER'S   STRUCTURAL    SOCIOLOGY  61 

in  its  various  grades  should  be  depicted;  not  only  with 
respect  to  the  kind  and  amount  of  education,  but  with 
respect  to  the  progress  made  in  science,  and  the  pre- 
vailing manner  of  thinking.  The  degree  of  aesthetic 
culture,  as  displayed  in  architecture,  sculpture,  paint- 
ing, dress,  music,  poetry,  and  fiction,  should  be  de- 
scribed. Nor  should  there  be  omitted  a  sketch  of  the 
daily  lives  of  the  people — their  food,  their  homes,  and 
their  amusements.  And,  lastly,  to  connect  the  whole, 
should  be  exhibited  the  morals,  theoretical  and  practical, 
of  all  classes,  as  indicated  in  their  laws,  habits,  proverbs, 
deeds.  These'  facts,  given  with  as  much  brevity  as  con- 
sists with  clearness  and  accuracy,  should  be  so  grouped 
and  arranged  that  they  may  be  comprehended  in  their 
ensemble,  and  contemplated  as  mutually  dependent  parts 
of  one  great  whole.  The  aim  should  be  so  to  present 
them  that  men  may  readily  trace  the  consensus  subsist- 
ing among  them,  with  the  view  of  learning  what  social 
phenomena  coexist  with  what  others.  And  then  the 
corresponding  delineations  of  succeeding  ages  should  be 
so  managed,  as  to  show  how  each  belief,  institution,  cus- 
tom and  arrangement  was  modified,  and  how  the  con- 
sensus of  preceding  structures  and  functions  was  devel- 
oped into  the  consensus  of  succeeding  ones.  Such  alone 
is  the  kind  of  information,  respecting  past  times,  which 
can  be  of  service  to  the  citizen  for  the  regulation  of  his 
conduct.  The  only  History  that  is  of  practical  value  is 
what  may  be  called  Descriptive  Sociology.  And  the 
highest  office  which  the  historian  can  discharge  is  that 
of  so  narrating  the  lives  of  nations  as  to  furnish  ma- 
terials for  a  Comparative  Sociology,  and  for  the  subse- 
quent determination  of  the  ultimate  laws  to  which  so- 
cial phenomena  conform." 

The  above  passage  is  of  especial  value  for  two 
reasons.  First,  it  marks  a  distinct  advance  in  historical 
theory.  Second,  it  indicates  Spencer's  place  in  the 
history  of  Sociology. 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 


The  one  adjective  which  better  than  any  other  de- 
scribes Spencer's  philosophy  as  a  whole,  is  "evolution- 
ary." 

Spencer  was  pre-eminently  the  "Evolutionary 
Philosopher."  In  this  respect  his  "Principles  of 
Biology"  is  unsurpassed.  This  cannot  be  said,  how- 
ever, of  his  "Principles  of  Sociology."  There  are 
two  methods  of  regarding  the  phenomena  of  any 
science — the  static  and  the  dynamic.  A  crude  illus- 
tration of  the  difference  between  the  two  is  the  differ- 
ence between  a  photograph  and  a  moving  picture.  The 
static  method  views  things  at  rest,  the  dynamic  method 
considers  them  in  motion.  In  sociology  the  statist 
is  mainly  occupied  with  social  structure;  the  dyna- 
mist  gives  his  chief  attention  to  the  social  process. 

In  Spencer's  concept  of  real  history,  given  above,  the 
catalogue  of  things  is  more  conspicuous  than  the  idea 
of  the  process  of  things  and  the  operation  of  social 
forces,  which  mark  the  latest  and  highest  development 
of  historical  theory. 

The  ultimate  test  of  the  relative  values  of  the  two 
is  to  be  found  in  the  nature  of  the  universe  itself. 
By  this  time  we  know  that  the  universe,  including 
its  contents,  is  not  static  but  dynamic.  In  the  lan- 
guage of  the  ancient  Greek  philosopher :  "Nothing  is, 
everything  is  becoming."  This  is  why  the  universe 
is  comprehensible  to  the  evolutionist  alone.  The  dif- 
ference between  the  descriptive,  static,  structural 
sociology  of  Spencer  and  the  dynamic  sociology  of 
the  later  sociologists,  such  as  Ratzenhofer,  Ward  and 
Small,  is,  to  borrow  an  excellent  simile  from  Small,  the 


SPENCER'S    STRUCTURAL    SOCIOLOGY  63 

difference  between  a  department  store  and  an  economic 
system.  It  is  the  difference  between  an  exhibit  of  a 
collection  of  concrete  articles  and  a  body  of  inter-relat- 
ing social  forces. 

In  biology  Spencer's  method  was  dynamic;  in 
sociology  he  was  static.  In  biology  he  dealt  mainly 
with  process;  in  sociology  he  dealt  chiefly  with 
structure.  This  does  not  mean  that  either  method  is 
absent  in  either  case.  The  structural  concept  is  present 
in  his  biology,  and  the  dynamic  method  is  present  in 
his  sociology.  This  was  unavoidable  in  the  nature  of 
the  case.  Structure  implies  function  and  process; 
function  and  process  necessarily  imply  and  involve 
the  idea  of  structure.  The  point  is  that,  while  in  his 
biology  the  structural  concept  is  subordinated  to  the 
dynamic  concept,  as  it  should  be,  in  his  sociology  the 
structural  concept  is  predominant.  This  is  a  curious 
confirmation  of  the  notion  of  Comte — that  each  science 
must  pass  through  successive  stages.  Here  we  see 
in  the  mind  of  Spencer  two  sciences  in  different  stages 
of  their  development. 

The  student  who  wishes  to  thoroughly  grasp 
Spencer's  place  in  the  science  of  sociology  would  do 
well  to  read  closely  the  earlier  chapters  of  Professor 
Small's  "General  Sociology."  A  careful  study  of 
Small's  keen  and  penetrating  analysis  and  criticism 
of  Spencer's  method  (yet  friendly  withal),  will  go  far 
to  enable  the  student  to  understand  more  recent  de- 
velopments in  sociological  theory.  As  a  preliminary 
to  such  a  study  we  will  quote  the  following  passages : 

"The  forms  of  expression  that  Spencer  uses  indicate 
that,  when  he  planned  his  sociological  studies,  the  proper 


64  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

material  of  history — or,  as  he  would  phrase  it,  "de- 
scriptive sociology" — seemed  to  him  to  be  a  species  of 
details  to  be  ranged  side  by  side  or  in  series  in  a  regur 
larly  classified  exhibit.  He  spoke  of  connections  between 
them,  and  of  laws  governing  them;  yet  he  had  not  ad- 
justed his  views  of  society  to  the  most  significent  ele- 
ments in  his  own  philosophy.  Social  facts  were  to  him 
as  the  plants  which  they  classified  were  to  the  herbarium- 
making  botanists  of  his  generation.  To  him  the  mor- 
phological features  of  social  facts,  their  arrangement 
into  orders  and  genera  and  species,  their  side-by-side- 
ness,  rather  than  their  interworkings,  seemed  decisive. 
Of  course,  certain  perceptions  of  interrelations  between 
the  groups  of  social  facts  are  in  evidence  in  everything 
that  he  wrote.  These  perceptions,  however,  played  at 
first  a  quite  subordinate  role  in  his  program  as  a  col- 
lector and  classifier  of  social  material.  Indeed,  the 
place  assigned  in  this  syllabus  to  Spencer's  work  as  a 
sociologist  is  determined  by  the  judgment  that  he  never 
entirely  outgrew  the  habit  of  treating  social  facts  in 
statical  categories  imposed  by  the  mind,  instead  of  press- 
ing on  to  view  them  in  the  dynamic  relations  in  which 
they  actually  occur.  This  judgment  was  reached  after 
study  of  Spencer's  system  during  a  quarter-century." 

Again  he  says: 

"His  method  was  to  compare  exhibits  that  societies 
display;  not  to  detect  the  process  through  which  they 
develop.  It  is  a  method  which  might  permit  a  botanist 
to  compare  the  parts  of  plants  without  thinking  to  en- 
quire about  their  vital  connection  with  the  soil.  It  is 
a  method  which  would  permit  the  zoologist  to  be  content 
with  descriptions  of  species,  without  bothering  himself 
about  the  origin  of  species.  It  is  a  method  essentially 
descriptive,  rather  than  explanatory." 

Speaking  in  the  name  of  present-day  sociology,  Pro- 
fessor Small  says: 


SPENCER'S   STRUCTURAL    SOCIOLOGY  65 

"The  problem  that  presents  itself  to  sociologists  to- 
day cannot  be  expressed  in  terms  that  sufficed  a  gen- 
eration ago.  Our  present  demand  is  for  a  way  of  ex- 
plaining what  is  taking  place  among  people,  with  lit- 
eral values  for  the  different  terms  which  we  find  con- 
cerned in  human  experience.  We  want  an  explanation, 
not  of  men's  crystalline  formations,  not  of  their  ma- 
chineries, not  of  their  institutional  remains.  We  want 
an  account  of  the  intimate  process  of  their  lives,  in 
terms  that  will  assign  their  actual  meaning  and  value 
to  the  chief  and  subordinate  factors  concerned  in  the 
process." 

Lest  all  this  should  lead  the  student  to  an -under- 
estimate of  Spencer,  we  give  the  following  apprecia- 
tion by  Small : 

"Yet  for  a  quarter-century  the  Spencerian  program 
of  sociology  has  probably  appealed  to  more  people  than 
any  other.  As  we  have  intimated  above,  this  is  proba- 
bly not  altogether  an  accident.  On  the  contrary,  we 
may  say  not  only  that  the  Spencerian  sociology  has  done 
good  service  as  a  medium  between  two  historical  stages 
in  the  development  of  the  science,  but  that  the  method 
which  it  employs  will  prove  to  be  a  necessary  medium 
between  stages  of  development  in  the  power  of  gener- 
alization in  the  individual  mind.  It  is  certain  that  we 
cannot  think  society  as  it  is,  without  using  structural 
forms  as  one  factor  in  the  composite  picture.  It  may 
be  that  there  are  periods  in  pur  mental  history  when 
the  best  thinking  which  we  can  do  about  society  will 
attach  excessive  importance  to  these  structural  concep- 
tions. At  all  events,  some  use  of  the  Spencerian  ver- 
sion of  society  is  unavoidable  at  present.  We  treat 
it,  therefore,  not  as  a  passing  phase  of  social  theory, 
but  as  a  partial  view  which  must  be  assimilated  in  our 
final  rendering  of  the  social  process." 


CHAPTER  VII 

HERBERT    SPENCER — DATA    OF    SOCIOLOGY. 

Of  the  ten  volumes  of  Mr.  Spencer's  "Synthetic  Phil- 
osophy," three  are  devoted  to  the  principles  of  soci- 
ology. This  is  the  greatest  number  of  volumes  de- 
voted to  any  one  science.  Mr.  Spencer's  attitude,  criti- 
cised in  the  preceding  chapter,  of  regarding  sociology 
as  a  collection  of  sociological  exhibits ;  a  sort  of  in- 
ventory of  society's  assets,  determines  the  character 
of  the  second  and  third  of  these  volumes. 

Volume  II  is  devoted  to  ceremonial  institutions  and 
political  institutions;  Volume  III  has  for  its  contents 
the  treatment  of  ecclesiastical  institutions;  professional 
institutions;  industrial  institutions.  The  descriptive 
method  reaches  back  into  the  latter  part  of  Volume  I, 
which  treats  of  domestic  institutions.  The  most  inter- 
esting and  important  part  of  the  entire  three  volumes 
is  the  divisions  in  the  first  volume  which  are  devoted 
respectively  to  "The  Data  of  Sociology"  and  "The  In- 
ductions of  Sociology."  All  readers  of  Mr.  Spencer 
who  open  the  first  volume  for  the  first  time,  with  no 
previous  warning,  and  begin  to  read  the  first  division — 
"The  Data  of  Sociology" — are  considerably  surprised 
and  not  a  little  disappointed.  It  is  by  no  means  what 
the  title  would  lead  one  to  expect.  What  the  reader 
does  naturally  expect  is  a  treatment  of  the  phenomena 
of  modern  societies  and  modern  civilization.  What 
Mr.  Spencer  gives,  however,  is  a  history  of  the  genesis 
of  religion.  The  bulk  of  this  division  says  nothing  of 

66 


SPENCER'S  DATA  OF  SOCIOLOGY  6? 

modern  societies,  not  even  anything  of  ancient  socie- 
ties; it  goes  back  of  all  historical  documents  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  ideas  of  primitive  man.  This  is  an 
echo  of  the  method  of  those  French  philosophers  of 
the  eighteenth  century  who  were  constantly  harking 
back  to  the  state  of  nature  and  who  illustrated  their 
discussion  of  the  problems  of  our  own  time  by  revert- 
ing to  the  notions  of  primitive  ancestors. 

This  method  has  survived  in  Mr.  Spencer,  and  the 
advocates  of  the  single  tax,  who  delight  in  illustrating 
their  theories  about  the  land  by  introducing  the  naked 
savage  who  catches  fish  by  plunging  his  bare  hand 
into  the  stream. 

Disappointing  as  the  first  volume  is  in  this  respect, 
it  is  nevertheless  a  very  brilliant  achievement  and  a 
work  of  permanent  value.  Here,  for  the  first  time, 
we  have  a  real  history  of  the  origin  and  development 
of  religion ;  a  history  Which  traces  religious  pheno*mena 
back  to  its  source  in  the  character  of  the  universe  and 
the  laws  of  thought.  It  entitles  Mr.  Spencer  to  be 
ranked  with  those  great  specialists  in  this  field,  Sir 
John  Lubbock  and  Edward  Tylor. 

Mr.  Spencer  proceeds  upon  the  assumption,  for 
which  there  is  much  to  be  said,  that  sociological  phe- 
nomena should  first  be  studied  in  its  earliest  forms. 
According  to  Mr.  Spencer,  institutions  are  the  result 
of  ideas,  and  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  understand 
primitive  ideas. 

As  all  primitive  man's  ideas  are  religious,  there  is 
no  difficulty  in  understanding  how  Mr.  Spencer's  an- 
alysis of  primitive  ideas  led  him  to  the  production  of 
a  treatise  on  religion. 


68  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

Mr.  Spencer's  conclusions  as  to  the  origin  of  religion 
are  of  course  in  general  agreement  with  those  of 
Lubbock,  Tylor,  Grant  Allen,  and  all  the  scientific 
men  who  have  thoroughly  probed  the  subject.  Proba- 
bly the  best  definition  of  religion  is  that  of  Mr.  Tylor, 
who  holds  that  the  one  thing  that  is  indispensable  to 
the  conception  of  religion  is  "the  belief  in  spiritual 
beings."  The  problem  of  explaining  religion  there- 
fore becomes  a  question  of  why  men  believed  in  spirit- 
ual beings.  This  question,  Mr.  Spencer  undertakes  to 
answer.  According  to  Mr.  Spencer  primitive  man 
came  to  believe  that  he  was  the  possessor  of  a  spirit 
which  had  the  power  to  separate  itself  from  the  body 
because  he  was  incapable  of  understanding  such 
natural  phenomena  about  him  as  appeared  to  prove 
the  existence  of  spirits. 

One  of  these  phenomena  is  that  presented  by  shad- 
ows. Mr.  Spencer  says: 

"The  primitive  man,  left  to  himself,  necessarily 
concludes  a  shadow  to  be  an  actual  existence,  which 
belongs  to  the  person  casting  it.  He  simply  accepts 
the  facts.  Whenever  the  sun  or  moon  is  visible,  he 
sees  this  attendant  thing  which  rudely  resembles  him 
in  shape,  which  moves  when  he  moves,  which  now 
goes  before  him,  now  keeps  by  his  side,  now  follows 
him,  which  lengthens  and  shortens  as  the  ground  in- 
clines this  way  or  that,  and  which  distorts  itself  in 
strange  ways  as  he  passes  by  irregular  surfaces.  True, 
he  cannot  see  it  in  cloudy  weather;  but,  in  the  absence 
of  a  physical  interpretation,  this  simply  proves  that  his 
attendant  comes  out  only  on  bright  days  and  bright 
nights." 

Again,  the  savage  was  deceived  by  echoes: 

"No  physical  explanation  of  an  echo  can  be  framed 


SPENCER'S  DATA  OF  SOCIOLOGY  69 

by  the  uncivilized  man.  What  does  he  know  about 
the  reflection  of  sound  waves?  What,  indeed,  is  known 
about  the  reflection  of  sound  waves  by  the  mass  of 
our  own  people?  Were  it  not  that  the  spread  of 
knowledge  has  modified  the  mode  of  thought  through- 
out all  classes,  producing  everywhere  a  readiness  to 
accept  what  we  call  natural  interpretations,  and  to 
assume  that  there  are  natural  interpretations  to  occur- 
rences not  comprehended;  there  would  even  now  be 
an  explanation  of  echoes  as  caused  by  unseen  beings." 

Probably  the  chief  source  of  our  primitive  beliefs 
in  spiritual  existences  is  to  be  found  in  the  inability 
of  the  savage  to  understand  his  dreams.  Under  this 
head  Mr.  Spencer  accumulated  a  fund  of  information, 
of  which  the  following  is  typical : 

"Schoolcraft  tells  us  that  the  North  American 
Indians  in  general,  think  'there  are  duplicate  souls, 
one  which  remains  with  the  body,  while  the  other  is 
free  to  depart  on  excursions  during  sleep,'  and,  accord- 
ing to  Crantz,  the  Greenlanders  hold  'that  the  soul  can 
forsake  the  body  during  the  interval  of  sleep.'  The 
theory  in  New  Zealand  is  'that  during  sleep  the  mind 
left  the  body,  and  that  dreams  are  the  objects  seen 
during  its  wanderings;'  and  in  Fiji  'it  is  believed  that 
the  spirit  of  a  man  who  still  lives  will  leave  the  body 
to  trouble  other  people  when  asleep.'  Similarly  in 
Borneo.  It  is  the  conviction  of  the  Dyaks  that  the 
soul  during  sleep  goes  on  expeditions  of  its  own,  and 
'sees,  hears  and  talks.'  Among  Hill-tribes  of  India, 
such  as  the  Karens,  the  same  doctrine  is  held,  their 
statement  being  that  'in  sleep  it  (the  La,  spirit  or 
ghost),  wanders  away  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  our 
dreams  are  what  the  La  sees  and  experiences  in  his 
perambulations." 

There  is  no  lack,  of  course,  of  superficial  persons  of 


70  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

the  orthodox  type  who  never  have  given  so  much  as 
ten  minutes  to  the  investigation  of  these  questions, 
but  who  are  willing  to  sweep  aside  with  a  jibe  the  monu- 
mental labors  of  anthropologists  who  have  reached 
practically  unanimous  conclusions  about  the  origin 
of  religions.  It  is  ridiculous  and  absurd,  say  these 
shallow  pated  gentlemen,  to  say  that  the  savage  knew 
so  little  and  was  deceived  so  easily.  To  this  objection, 
Mr.  Spencer  had  the  following  reply: 

"That  the  primitive  man's  conception  of  dream- 
ing is  natural,  will  now  be  obvious.  As  said  at  the 
outset,  his  notions  may  seem  strange  because,  in  think- 
ing about  them,  we  carry  with  us  the  theory  of  Mind 
which  civilization  has  slowly  established.  Mind,  how- 
ever, as  we  conceive  it,  is  unknown  to  the  savage ; 
being  neither  disclosed  by  the  senses,  nor  directly 
revealed  as  an  internal  entity." 

Belief  in  the  existence  of  gods  is  only  one  special 
form  of  belief  in  the  existence  of  spirits,  inasmuch  as 
all  gods  are  spirits.  As  to  the  origin  of  gods,  Mr. 
Spencer  propounds  the  theory  which  is  steadily  coming 
to  be  generally  accepted  as  the  scientific  explanation. 
This  theory  is  that  the  worship  of  the  gods  was  in 
reality  in  the  beginning  the  worship  of  the  mighty 
dead.  One  of  the  things  leading  to  this  result  was  the 
inability  of  primitive  men  to  distinguish  between  sleep 
and  death.  To  vast  numbers  of  them  death  was  simply 
an  unusually  long  sleep,  and  it  was  expected  that  at 
any  time  the  corpse  might  be  come  reanimated  by 
the  return  of  the  spirit  which  had  probably  undertaken 
a  long  journey.  From  the  mass  of  evidence  accumu- 
lated on  this  head  by  Mr.  Spencer,  we  select  the  fol- 
lowing: 


SPENCER'S  DATA  OF  SOCIOLOGY  71 

"That  this  confusion,  naturally  to  be  inferred,  ac- 
tually exists,  we  have  proof.  Arbousset  and  Daumas 
quote  the  proverb  of  the  Bushmen — 'Death  is  only  a 
sleep/  Concerning  the  Tasmanians,  Bonwick  writes: 
'When  one  was  asked  the  reason  of  the  spear  being 
stuck  in  the  tomb,  he  replied,  quietly,  'To  fight  with 
when  he  sleep.'  Even  so  superior  a  race  as  the 
Dyaks  have  great  difficulty  in  distinguishing  sleep 
from  death." 

Mr.  Spencer  proceeds  to  relate  how  various  tribes 
attempted  by  a  variety  of  methods,  including  whip- 
ping, to  cause  the  dead  to  wake  from  their  sleep.  Mr. 
Spencer  believes,  as  the  result  of  his  researches,  that 
the  custom  of  setting  food  before  the  corpses,  or  bring- 
ing it  to  the  bodies,  was  due  to  the  belief  that  death 
was  a  long  suspended  animation.  As  to  how  Ion* 
this  suspension  might  continue,  primitive  man  had 
no  idea.  He,  therefore,  took  the  safe  course  of  con- 
tinually replenishing  the  supplies  of  food.  "Resuscita- 
tion," says  Mr.  Spencer,  "as  originally  conceived, 
could  not  take  place  unless  there  remained  a  body  to 
be  resuscitated.  Expectation  of  a  revival  is  often  ac- 
companied by  recognition  of  the  need  of  preserving 
the  corpse  from  injury/'  For  this  reason,  the  Abys- 
sinians  seldom  buried  their  criminals,  but  left  the 
bodies  in  the  fields,  probably  believing  that  when  the 
bodies  were  devoured  by  beasts  of  prey,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  the  criminals  ever  to  repeat  their  crimes. 
The  Egyptian  knew  no  more  terrible  punishment  than 
the  destruction  of  his  corpse.  The  Demaras  hold  that 
if  dead  men  are  thrown  away  and  the  wolves  eat  them, 
they  will  never  again  bother  anybody.  This  led  to 
the  most  ingenious  contrivances  for  the  concealment 


72  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

of  corpses  from  destruction  by  their  enemies.  Tahi- 
tians  would  deposit  prized  bodies  on  the  tops  of  the 
most  inaccessible  mountains.  A  Bechuana  is  buried 
in  his  cattle  pen  and  all  the  cattle  are  driven  for  an 
hour  or  two  around  and  over  the  grave,  to  destroy  all 
traces  of  its  location.  We  are  told  that  when  Alaric 
was  buried,  the  river  was  diverted,  and  the  body 
buried  in  the  river  bed,  after  which  the  stream  was 
allowed  to  return  to  its  natural  course. 

To  those  who  wish  to  know  the  mountains  of  evi- 
dence that  have  been  piled  up  on  this  and  kindred 
subjects,  all  going  to  show  the  real  origin  of  religious 
beliefs  still  current  in  our  day,  we  commend  the  read- 
ing of  the  first  part  of  Spencer's  first  volume  of  "Prin- 
ciples of  Sociology,"  Edward  Tylor's  "Primitive  Cul- 
ture," and  Grant  Allen's  "Evolution  of  the  Idea  of 
God."  Other  phenomena  which  led  to  spiritual 
notions,  not  mentioned  so  far,  are  reflections  in  pools, 
insomnia,  swoons,  catelepsy,  etc.,  all  of  which  were 
explained  by  primitive  men  by  the  assumption  of  be- 
lief in  spirits.  If  it  is  argued  that  this  does  not  explain 
why  religious  ideas  have  persisted  so  far  into  modern 
times,  it  might  well  be  answered  that  the  human  race 
lived  in  this  condition  of  ignorance  as  to  natural 
causes  of  natural  phenomena  for  a  vast  period  of  time, 
while,  comparatively  speaking,  science  and  its  expla- 
nations are  things  of  yesterday. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

HERBERT   SPENCER — ANALOGICAL   SOCIOLOGY 

As  we  have  already  seen,  Mr.  Spencer  earned  his 
place  among  the  very  foremost  of  the  world's  philoso- 
phers by  a  number  of  achievements  any  one  of  which 
would  have  secured  his  fame. 

He  settled  the  territorial  dispute  between  science  and 
religion,  and  if  the  struggle  between  them  still  contin- 
ues it  is  only  because  his  award  has  not  been  universally 
accepted.  This  award,  it  is  practically  certain,  will  ulti- 
mately prevail,  not,  of  course,  because  he  made  it,  but 
because  the  facts  of  the  case  render  it  inevitable. 

Another  lasting  triumph,  already  referred  to,  is  his 
welding  together  in  a  grand  unity  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  universe.  This  makes  him  a  monist,  and  monism 
is  the  highest  expression  of  philosophy,  as  monotheism 
is  the  highest  reach  of  religion.  Spencer  finds  the 
basis  of  his  monism  in  the  supremacy  of  force  and  while 
this  may  be  regarded  as  a  questionable  position,  it  is  a 
distinct  advance  on  Comte's  denial  of  the  existence  of 
force  as  a  necessary  relation  of  nature.  It  seems  to  me 
however  that  force  is  not  the  proper  occupant  of  the 
throne  of  the  universe  but  that  matter  is  the  true  sover- 
eign. In  the  controversy  now  proceeding,  in  my  opin- 
ion, the  final  victory  will  fall,  not  to  the  dynamist  up- 
holders of  force,  but  to  the  scientific  materialist  monists 
of  the  type  of  Ernest  Haeckel  and  Lester  F.  Ward. 

Mr.  Spencer's  two  volumes,  "The  Principles  of  Biol- 
ogy," are  a  landmark  of  that  science,  his  "Principles  of 

78 


74  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

Psychology"  are  a  monument  that  will  never  crumble, 
though  it  will  undoubtedly  be  surpassed  as  the  science 
advances. 

We  now  come  to  Spencer's  most  valuable  service  to 
the  science  of  sociology.  We  have  already  noted  sev- 
eral of  his  contributions  in  this  field — his  complete  over- 
throw of  the  great  man  theory,  and  his  origin  and  gen- 
esis of  religion  as  revealed  by  the  study  of  the  ideas  of 
primitive  man. 

His  crowning  contribution  to  sociology  however  lies 
in  his  analysis  of  society,  in  which  analysis  he  contends 
that  society  is  an  organism. 

This  theory  of  Spencer's  deserves  the  closest  atten- 
tion of  the  student  of  sociology.  Whatever  may  be  its 
ultimate  value  there  is  no  doubting  its  merit  and  its 
desirability  at  the  time  it  was  written.  It  supplied  so- 
ciology's most  urgent  need.  In  harmony  with  Comte's 
theory  of  the  progress  of  the  sciences,  biology  had  al- 
ready reached  the  positive  or  scientific  stage,  attained 
still  earlier  by  the  inorganic  sciences.  The  emancipa- 
tion of  sociology  from  the  trammels  of  theology  and 
metaphysics  still  lay  in  the  future.  The  one  thing  which 
freed  the  organic  sciences  and  confirmed  forever  the 
emancipation  of  the  inorganic  sciences,  was  the  dis- 
covery and  application  of  the  theory  of  evolution. 

The  clearness  of  Mr.  Spencer's  thinking  shines  forth 
in  his  naming  of  things.  The  inanimate  is,  of  course, 
the  inorganic;  the  living,  is  the  organic,  while  social 
life  is  super-organic.  Inasmuch,  therefore,  as  inorganic 
evolution  had  banished  theology  and  metaphysics  forever 
from  the  field  of  the  inorganic,  and  organic  evolution 


SPFNCER'S  ANALOGICAL  SOCIOLOGY  75 

had  done  the  same  for  the  organic  sciences,  the  science 
of  society  needed  only  for  its  release  the  establishment 
of  super-organic  evolution.  And  this  is  precisely  what 
Mr.  Spencer  did  with  his  theory  of :  "The  Social  Organ- 
ism/' 

What  is  meant  by  super-organic  evolution,  Mr.  Spen- 
cer makes  quite  clear  in  the  opening  pages  of  the  first 
volume  of  "Principles  of  Sociology": 

"Of  the  three  broadly-distinguished  kinds  of  Evolu- 
tion outlined  in  First  Principles,  we  come  now  to  the 
third.  The  first  kind,  Inorganic  Evolution,  which,  had 
it  been  dealt  with,  would  have  occupied  two  volumes, 
one  dealing  with  Astrogeny  and  the  other  with 
Geogeny,  was  passed  over  because  it  seemed  undesir- 
able to  postpone  the  more  important  applications  of 
the  doctrine  for  the  purpose  of  elaborating  those  less 
important  applications  which  logically  precede  them. 
The  four  volumes  succeeding  First  Principles,  have 
dealt  with  Organic  Evolution :  two  of  them  with  those 
physical  phenomena  presented  by  living  aggregates, 
vegetal  and  animal,  of  all  classes;  and  the  other  two 
with  those  more  special  phenomena  distinguished  as 
psychical,  which  the  most  evolved  organic  aggregates 
display.  We  now  enter  on  the  remaining  division — 
Super-organic  Evolution." 

Astrogeny  and  Geogeny  in  the  above  paragraph  are, 
of  course,  the  equivalents  of  Astronomy  and  Geology. 
Mr.  Spencer  proceeds  to  show  what  super-organic  evo- 
lution is  by  showing  what  it  is  not: 

"While  we  are  occupied  with  the  facts  displayed  by 
an  individual  organism  during  its  growth,  maturity 
and  decay,  we  are  studying  Organic  Evolution.  If 
we  take  into  account,  as  we  must,  the  actions  and  re- 
actions going  on  between  this  organism  and  organisms 


76  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

of  other  kinds  which  its  life  puts  it  in  relations  with, 
we  still  do  not  go  beyond  the  limits  of  Organic  Evo- 
lution. Nor  need  we  consider  that  we  exceed  these 
limits  on  passing  to  the  phenomena  that  accompany 
the  rearing  of  offspring;  though  here,  we  see  the  germ 
of  a  new  order  of  phenomena.  While  recognizing  the 
fact  that  parental  co-operation  foreshadows  processes 
of  a  class  beyond  the  simply  organic ;  and  while  recog- 
nizing the  fact  that  some  of  the  products  of  parental 
co-operation,  such  as  nests,  foreshadow  products  of 
the  super-organic  class;  we  may  fitly  regard  Super- 
organic  Evolution  as  commencing  only  when  there 
arises  something  more  than  the  combined  efforts  of 
parents." 

Mr.  Spencer's  something  more  is  those  various  acts 
generally  described  as  social  activities,  and  the  line  be 
tween  the  organic  and  the  super-organic  is  drawn  be- 
tween the  family  and  society. 

He  illustrates  his  theory  by  citing  various  insect  so- 
cieties— bees,  wasps,  ants — and  certain  birds  and  gre- 
garious animals. 

In  dealing  with  these  sub-human  social  groups,  it  is 
well  worth  noting  that  Mr.  Spencer  annihilates  the  ar- 
gument against  socialism  employed  by  Haeckel  at  the 
Munich  Congress  of  Naturalists  in  1877.  The  great 
German  pathologist,  Virchow,  a  bitter  opponent  of  the 
entire  evolution  theory,  sought  to  alarm  the  Darwinians 
with  the  taunt:  "Darwinism  leads  directly  to  socialism." 
Haeckel,  as  the  recognized  chief  of  the  Darwinians  pres- 
ent, delivered  a  reply  of  which  the  following  is  a  part: 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  scientific  doctrine 
which  proclaims  more  openly  than  the  theory  of 
descent,  that  the  equality  of  individuals,  toward  which 
Socialism  tends,  is  an  impossibility,  that  this  chimeri- 


SPENCER'S  ANALOGICAL  SOCIOLOGY  77 

cal  equality  is  in  absolute  contradiction  with  the  neces- 
sary and,  in  fact,  universal  inequality  of  individuals. 

"Socialism  demands  for  all  citizens  'equal  rights, 
equal  duties,  equal  possessions  and  equal  enjoyments ; 
the  theory  of  descent  establishes,  on  the  contrary,  that 
the  realization  of  these  hopes  is  purely  and  simply 
impossible ;  that  in  human  societies,  as  in  animal  socie- 
ties, neither  the  rights,  nor  the  duties,  nor  the  posses- 
sions, nor  the  enjoyments  of  all  the  members  of  a 
society  are  or  ever  can  be  equal." 

Haeckel's  introduction  of  animal  societies  in  the  above 
passage  as  an  evidence  of  the  impossibility  of  abolishing 
class  divisions  in  human  society  is  almost  if  not  alto- 
gether unpardonable  in  a  skilled  naturalist.  The  Im- 
plied parallel  between  animal  societies  and  human  so- 
ciety exists  only  in  Haeckel's  extremely  careless  and 
groundless  assumption. 

When  Haeckel  here  says  animal,  he  of  course  uses 
the  word  in  its  widest  sense  as  equivalent  to  zoological, 
and  he  immediately  conjures  up  in  the  minds  of  his 
hearers  pictures  of  bees  and  ants  who  furnish  the  most 
notorious  instances  of  sub-human  social  organization 
and  practically  the  only  examples  of  anything  that  can 
be  compared  to  human  class  divisions. 

We  shall  now  see  how  Spencer  completely  overthrows 
Haeckel  : 

"Though  social  insects  exhibit  a  kind  of  evolution 
much  higher  than  the  merely  organic — though  the 
aggregates  they  form  simulate  social  aggregates  in 
sundry  ways ;  yet  they  are  not  true  social  aggregates. 
For  each  of  them  is  in  reality  a  large  family.  It  is  not 
a  union  among  like  individuals  independent  of  one 
another  in  parentage,  and  approximately  equal  in  the 
capacities;  but  it  is  a  union  among  the  offspring  of 


78"  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

one  mother,  carried  on,  in  some  cases  for  a  single 
generation,  and  in  some  cases  for  more ;  and  from  this 
community  of  parentage  arises  the  possibility  of 
classes  having  unlike  structures  and  consequent  unlike 
functions.  Instead  of  being  allied  to  the  specializa- 
tion which  arises  in  a  society,  properly  so  called,  the 
specialization  which  arises  in  one  of  these  large  and 
complicated  insect-families,  is  allied  to  that  which 
arises  between  the  sexes." 

The  italics  are  Mr.  Spencer's.  The  "like  structures" 
of  men  and  women  subject  to  social  inequality  and  the 
"unlike  structures"  of  bees  and  ants  who  are  divided 
into  classes  by  divisions  that  are  not  "social"  in  any 
sense,  but  purely  biological,  are  altogether  fatal  to 
Haeckel's  argument.  For  a  full  reply  to  Haeckel  I 
must  now  refer  the  reader  to  the  seventh  chapter  of 
my  "Evolution,  Social  and  Organic/'  from  which  I 
quote  the  following: 

"  'Bee'  society  may  be  said  to  have  class  divisions, 
and  it  must  be  conceded  that  these  classes  cannot  be 
abolished  by  anything  that  could,  by  any  stretch  of 
the  imagination,  be  called  'bee  socialism/  But  the 
reason  for  this  is  not  far  to  seek  and,  when  found,  it 
makes  any  argument  by  analogy,  against  Socialism, 
impossible.  Bee  workers  are  'physiologically'  inca- 
pable of  discharging  any  other  function  in  bee  society. 
They  are  females,  incapable  of  maternity.  As  a  result 
of  this  the  queen  bee  is  obliged  to  shoulder  the  whole 
burden  of  the  reproduction  of  the  species,  and  she  is 
specialized  in  this  direction  to  such  an  extent,  that 
she  could  not  possibly  be  a  worker.  The  drone,  as  the 
male  breeder,  is  in  the  same  fix,  and  the  popular  notion 
that  they  are  useless  loafers,  has  its  origin  in  the  bee 
custom  of  applying  the  boot,  or  something  worse,  to 
all  superfluous  members  of  the  drone  class." 


SPENCER'S  ANALOGICAL  SOCIOLOGY  79 

And  again: 

"Class  divisions  in  bee  society  are  therefore  'biologi- 
cal' and  not  economic.  But  Haeckel's  comparison 
ignores  this  vital  distinction.  Before  this  argument 
can  be  used  against  the  Socialist  advocacy  of  class 
abolition,  it  must  be  shown  that  a  queen  cannot  wash 
clothes  with  starvation  as  an  alternative,  and  that 
a  pleb  woman  could  not  wear  a  coronet,  should  her 
father  invest  in  a  busted  duke." 

In  the  last  citation  from  Spencer,  he  plainly  compares 
the  divisions  among  "social  insects  to  division  between 
the  sexes."  As  well  might  Haeckel  have  argued  against 
what  he  calls  "the  absurd,  equalitarian,  Utopian  notions 
of  the  socialists"  on  the  ground  that  men  can  never  bear 
children  and  women  cannot  grow  beards. 

We  now  come  to  Mr.  Spencer's  analysis  of  human 
society,  which  he  holds,  in  common  with  present-day  so- 
ciologists, is  the  only  real  form  of  society. 

Says  Spencer: 

"We  may  henceforth  restrict  ourselves  to  that  form 
of  Super-organic  Evolution  which  so  immensely  tran- 
scends all  others  in  extent,  in  complication,  in  im- 
portance, as  to  make  them  relatively  insignificant.  I 
refer  to  the  form  of  it  which  human  societies  exhibit 
in  their  growths,  structures,  functions,  products.  To 
the  phenomena  comprised  in  these,  and  grouped  under 
the  general  title  of  Sociology,  we  now  pass." 

Spencer  has  two  treatments  of  this  subject.  One  is 
his  essay  on  "The  Social  Organism;"  the  seventh  essay 
in  the  first  volume  of  his  "Essays,  Scientific,  Political 
and  Speculative."'  This  is  best  suited  for  popular  read- 


80  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ing  as  the  author  probably  intended.  My  own  analy- 
sis of  and  comments  upon  this  essay  will  be  found  in 
the  eighth  chapter  of  "Evolution,  Social  and  Organic," 
which  is  devoted  entirely  to  that  purpose. 

The  second  treatment  of  the  subject  by  Spencer 
occupies  the  second  -book  of  the  first  volume  of  his 
Principles  of  Sociology,  which  is  entitled,  as  before 
mentioned:  "The  Inductions  of  Sociology."  For  an  ex- 
cellent condensation  of  this  the  reader  is  referred  to  the 
eighth  chapter  of  Professor  Small's  "General  Sociol- 
ogy." The  student,  however,  will  be  well  advised  to 
read  for  himself  "The  Inductions  of  Sociology/' 

The  title  of  the  opening  chapter  consists  of  the  ques-. 
tion :  "What  is  Society  ?"  Spencer  insists  that  this  ques- 
tion must  be  asked  and  answered  at  the  outset.  Is  it 
a  thing — an  entity?  or,  is  it  like  a  lecturer's  audience 
which,  by  dispersing,  proves  itself  not  to  be  a  thing  but 
merely  "a  certain  arrangement  of  persons?"  Our  au- 
thor decides  that  inasmuch  as  the  members  of  a  society 
do  not  disperse,  but  remain  in  permanent  social  rela- 
tions, society  is  a  thing. 

Having  decided  that  society  is  a  thing,  Spencer  con- 
tinues : 

"But  now,  regarding  a  society  as  a  thing,  what  kind 
of  thing  must  we  call  it?  It  seems  totally  unlike  every 
object  with  which  our  senses  acquaint  us.  Any  like- 
ness it  may  possibly  have  to  other  objects,  cannot  be 
manifest  to  perception,  but  can  be  discerned  only  by 
reason.  If  the  constant  relations  among  its  parts 
make  it  an  entity;  the  question  arises  whether  these 
constant  relations  among  its  parts  are  akin  to  the 
constant  relations  among  the  parts  of  other  entities, 
Between  a  society  and  anything  else,  the  only  con- 


SPENCER'S  ANALOGICAL  SOCIOLOGY  81 

ceivable  resemblance  must  be  one  due  to  parallelism 
of  principle  in  the  arrangement  of  components. 

"There  are  two  great  classes  of  aggregates  with 
which  the  social  aggregate  may  be  compared — the 
inorganic  and  the  organic.  Are  the  attributes  of  a 
society  in  any  way  like  those  of  a  not-living  body? 
or  are  they  in  any  way  like  those  of  a  living  body?  or 
are  they  unlike  those  of  both? 

The  first  of  these  questions  needs  only  to  be  asked 
to  be  answered  in  the  negative.  A  whole  of  which 
the  parts  are  alive,  cannot,  in  its  general  characters, 
be  like  lifeless  wholes.  The  second  question,  not  to 
be  thus  promptly  answered,  is  to  be  answered  in  the 
affirmative.  The  reasons  for  asserting  that  the  perma- 
nent relations  among  the  parts  of  a  society,  are  analo- 
gous to  the  permanent  relations  among  the  parts  of 
a  living  body,  we  have  now  to  consider." 

Spencer  is  now  ready  to  answer  the  question  in  the 
title  of  his  first  chapter, — "What  is  a  Society?" — in  the 
title  of  his  second:  "A  Society  is  an  Organism."  A  so- 
ciety is  a  "social  aggregate,"  as  an  animal  is  an  "organic 
aggregate."  The  question  now  is,  what  have  these  aggre- 
gates in  common  which  justifies  the  analogy? 

The  first  thing  they  have  in  common  is  growth. 
Growth  "is  the  first  trait  by  which  societies  ally  them- 
selves with  the  organic  world  and  substantially  distin- 
guish themselves  from  the  inorganic  world." 

"It  is  also  a  character  of  social  bodies,  as  of  living 
bodies,  that  while  they  increase  in  size  they  also  in- 
crease in  structure."  Progress  from  a  low  animal  to 
a  high  one  is  a  multiplication  and  a  differentiation 
of  parts.  A  low  animal  is  all  stomach,  all  respiratory 
surface,  all  limb.  Only  by  the  evolutionary  multiplica- 
tion of  parts  and  functions  come  lungs,  legs,  teeth,  a 


82  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

separate  stomach  nourishing  all  and  saving  the  rest  the 
necessity  of  performing  the  stomach  function  for  them- 
selves. The  added  parts  are  not  like  the  original  ones, 
but  different.  They  do  not  do  the  same  things,  but  dif- 
ferent things.  Progress  is  by  division  of  labor;  by  spe- 
cialization, each  part  of  the  community  of  parts  per- 
forming its  own  task,  which  is  a  different  task  from  the 
others — in  scientific  terminology,  differentiation  of  parts 
and  functions.  Spencer  proceeds  to  show,  in  language 
that  needs  no  simplifying,  that  all  this  is  equally  true  of 
society : 

"While  rudimentary,  a  society  is  all  warrior,  all 
hunter,  all  hut-builder,  all  tool-maker:  every  part 
fulfills  for  itself  all  needs.  Progress  to  a  stage  char- 
acterized by  a  permanent  army,  can  go  on  only  as 
there  arise  arrangements  for  supplying  that  army 
with  food,  clothes,  and  munitions  of  war  by  the  rest.- 
If  here  the  population  occupies  itself  solely  with  agri- 
culture and  there  with  mining — if  these  manufacture 
goods  while  those  distribute  them,  it  must  be  on  condi- 
tion that  in  exchange  for  a  special  kind  of  service 
rendered  by  each  part  to  other  parts,  these  other  parts 
severally  give  due  proportions  of  their  services. 

"This  division  of  labor,  first  dwelt  on  by  political 
economists  as  a  social  phenomenon,  and  thereupon 
recognized  by  biologists  as  a  phenomenon  of  living 
bodies,  which  they  called  the  'physiological  division 
of  labor/  is  that  which  in  the  society,  as  in  the  animal, 
makes  it  a  living  whole.  Scarcely  can  I  emphasize 
enough  the  truth  that  in  respect  of  this  fundamental 
trait,  a  social  organism  and  an  individual  organism 
are  entirely  alike.  When  we  see  that  in  a  mammal, 
arresting  the  lungs  quickly  brings  the  heart  to  a  stand ; 
that  if  the  stomach  fails  absolutely  in  its  office  all 
other  parts  by-and-by  cease  to  act;  that  paralysis 


SPENCER'S  ANALOGICAL  SOCIOLOGY  83 

of  its  limbs  entails  on  the  body  at  large  death  from 
want  of  food,  or  inability  to  escape;  that  loss  of  even 
such  small  organs  as  the  eyes,  deprives  the  rest  of  a 
service  essential  to  their  preservation;  we  cannot  but 
admit  that  mutual  dependence  of  parts  is  an  essential 
characteristic.  And  when,  in  a  society,  we  see  that 
the  workers  in  iron  stop  if  the  miners  do  not  supply 
materials;  that  makers  of  clothes  cannot  carry  on 
their  business  in  the  absence  of  those  who  spin  and 
weave  textile  fabrics;  that  the  manufacturing  com- 
munity will  cease  to  act  unless  the  food-producing 
and  food-distributing  agencies  are  acting;  that  the 
controlling  powers,  governments,  bureau,  judicial 
officers,  police,  must  fail  to  keep  order  when  the  neces- 
saries of  life  are  not  supplied  to  them  by  the  parts 
kept  in  order;  we  are  obliged  to  say  that  this  mutual 
dependence  of  parts  is  similarly  rigorous.  Unlike  as 
the  two  kinds  of  aggregates  otherwise  are,  they  are 
unlike  in  respect  of  this  fundamental  character,  and 
the  characters  implied  by  it." 

But  a  society  is  a  mass  of  individuals  who  have  a  good 
deal  of  independence  and  despite  their  dependence  on 
society  as  a  whole,  yet  live  their  individual  lives.  To 
those  unacquainted  with  the  revelations  of  biology  the 
analogy  here  breaks  down.  But  this  is  by  no  means  the 
case.  In  fact,  the  opposite  is  the  case.  Every  animal 
is  composed  of  millions  of  cells,  each  cell  having  its  own 
history  and  its  own  individual  life.  The  blood  cells,  for 
example,  move  around  freely,  selecting  their  own  food. 
The  white  corpuscles  "may  be  fed  with  colored  food 
which  will  then  be  seen  to  have  accumulated  in  the  in- 
terior," "and  in  some  cases  the  colorless  blood-corpus- 
cles have  actually  been  seen  to  devour  their  more  dimin- 
utive companions,  the  red  ones."  Spencer  quotes  Hux- 


84  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ley:  "The  sponge  represents  a  kind  of  sub-aqueous  city, 
where  the  people  are  arranged  about  the  streets  and 
roads,  in  such  a  manner,  that  each  can  easily  appro- 
priate his  food  from  the  water  as  it  passes  along."  From 
these  and  many  other  facts  and  illustrations  Spencer 
concludes:  "On  thus  seeing  that  an  ordinary  living  or- 
ganism may  be  regarded  as  a  nation  of  units  which  live 
individually,  and  have  many  of  them  considerable  de- 
grees of  independence,  we  shall  have  the  less  difficulty 
in  regarding  a  nation  of  human  beings  as  an  organism." 

Another  clear  parallel  is  that  "the  life  of  the  aggre- 
gate is  far  longer  than  the  lives  of  the  units."  "The 
minute  living  elements  composing  a  developed  animal, 
severally  evolve,  play  their  parts,  decay,  and  are  re- 
placed, while  the  animal  as  a  whole  continues." 

"Thus  it  is  also  with  a  society  and  its  units.  In- 
tegrity of  the  whole  as  of  each  large  division  is  peren- 
nially maintained,  notwithstanding  the  deaths  of  com- 
ponent citizens.  The  fabric  of  living  persons  which, 
in  a  manufacturing  town,  produces  some  commodity 
for  national  use,  remains  after  a  century  as  large  a 
fabric,  though  all  the  masters  and  workers  who  a 
century  ago  composed  it  have  long  since  disappeared. 
Even  with  minor  parts  of  this  industrial  structure  the 
like  holds.  A  firm  that  dates  from  past  generations, 
still  carrying  on  business  in  the  name  of  its  founder, 
has  had  all  its  members  and  employes  changed  one 
by  one,  perhaps  several  times  over;  while  the  firm  has 
continued  to  occupy  the  same  place  and  to  maintain 
like  relations  with  buyers  and  sellers.  Throughout 
we  find  this.  Governing  bodies,  general  and  local, 
ecclesiastical  corporations,  armies,  institutions  of  all 
orders  down  to  guilds,  clubs,  philanthropic  associa- 


SPENCER'S  ANALOGICAL  SOCIOLOGY  85 

tions,  etc.,  show  us  a  continuity  of  life  exceeding  that 
of  the  persons  constituting  them.  Nay,  more.  As 
part  of  the  same  law,  we  see  that  the  existence  of  the 
society  at  large  exceeds  in  duration  that  of  some  of 
these  compound  parts.  Private  unions,  local  public 
bodies,  secondary  national  institutions,  towns  carry- 
ing on  special  industries,  may  decay;  while  the  nation, 
maintaining  its  integrity,  evolves  in  mass  and  struc- 
ture." 

It  is  impossible  in  a  work  of  this  size  to  follow  Spen- 
cer through  all  the  details  of  his  analogy  between  so- 
ciety and  a  biological  organism,  and  the  reader  who 
desires  to  do  so  must  turn  to  the  pages  of  the  author. 
The  essay  on  "The  Social  Organism"  contains  some  re- 
markably ingenious  comparisons.  Railways,  .carrying 
food  to  points  of  consumption,  are  compared  to  the 
blood  carrying  nutriment  to  the  various  parts  of  the  body. 
Even  the  double  track  railroad  is  paralleled  by  arteries 
and  veins  carrying  the  blood  in  opposite  directions. 
Blood,  the  grand  essential  of  organic  life,  is  compared 
to  money  in  social  life,  and  the  comparison  is  carried 
to  the  point  of  recognizing  a  likeness  between"  blood 
discs  and  coins.  The  nerves,  carrying  their  instantan- 
eous messages  to  the  brain,  are  likened  to  the  telegraph. 
Even  parliaments  have  their  organic  counterpart,  though 
it  is  with  evident  reluctance  that  he  is  obliged  to  admit 
that  the  comparison  of  the  despised  legislative  bodies 
must  be  compared  to  so  important  an  organ  as  the 
brain.  Only  in  government  and  governmental  bodies 
could  he  find  anything  that  served  as  a  sort  of  social 
sensorium.  As  Huxley  pointed  out,  this  was  a  sad  com- 
mentary on  Spencer's  rabid  individualistic  attacks  on  all 
things  legislative. 


86  AN   INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

We  will  now  present  Spencer's  own  summary  of  the 
general  reasons  "for  regarding  a  society  as  an  organism." 

"It  undergoes  continuous  growth.  As  it  grows,  its 
parts  become  unlike :  it  exhibits  increase  of  structure. 
The  unlike  parts  simultaneously  assume  activities  of 
unlike  kinds.  These  activities  are  not  simply  different, 
but  their  differences  are  so  related  as  to  make  one  an- 
other possible.  The  reciprocal  aid  thus  given  causes 
mutual  dependence  of  the  parts.  And  the  mutually- 
dependent  parts,  living  by  and  for  one  another,  form 
an  aggregate  constituted  on  the  same  general  principle 
as  is  an  individual  organism.  The  analogy  of  a  society 
to  an  organism  becomes  still  clearer  on  learning  that 
every  organism  of  appreciable  size  is  a  society;  and 
on  further  learning  that  in  both,  the  lives  of  the  units 
continue  for  some  time  if  the  life  of  the  aggregate 
is  suddenly  arrested,  while  if  the  aggregate  is  not  de- 
stroyed by  violence,  its  life  greatly  exceeds  in  dura- 
tion the  lives  of  its  units.  Though  the  two  are  con- 
trasted as  respectively  discrete  and  concrete  and 
though  there  results  a  difference  in  the  ends  subserved 
by  the  organization,  there  does  not  result  a  difference 
in  the  laws  of  the  organization :  the  required  mutual 
influences  of  the  parts,  not  transmissible  in  a  direct 
way,  being,  in  a  society,  transmitted  in  an  indirect 
way." 

Spencer's  analogical  method  has  met  with  much  criti- 
cism at  the  hands  of  his  successors.  Professor  Giddings, 
in  his  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  while  holding  .that 
Spencer's  analogy  is  "not  fanciful"  but  "real,"  contends 
that  it  has  "limited  scientific  value."  Giddings  main- 
tains that  while  a  society  has  much  in  common  with  an 
organism,  it  is  in  reality  something  more,  viz.:  an  or- 
ganization. 


SPENCER'S  ANALOGICAL  SOCIOLOGY  87 

Probably  the  best  estimate  is  that  of  Lester  F.  Ward, 
in  the  first  volume  of  "Dynamic  Sociology"  (page  209) : 

"The  chief  service  that  has  been  done  in  pointing 
out  these  analogies  so  minutely  has  been  that  of 
demonstrating  by  means  of  them  that  society  is  an 
evolving  aggregate.  This  was  the  truth  that  most 
needed  demonstration,  being  the  one  commonly  called 
in  question.  The  denial  of  this  proposition  is  fatal 
to  all  attempts  to  study  sociology  as  a  branch  of 
science.  No  one  doubts  now  that  organisms  may  be 
legitimately  so  studied.  When,  therefore,  it  is  shown 
that  nearly  all  the  phenomena  which  a  living  creature 
presents  are  directly  comparable  to  exactly  corres- 
ponding phenomena  in  society,  the  strongest  proof 
that  can  be  presented  of  the  scientific  character  of 
social  processes  has  been  furnished.  And  when  it  is 
shown  that  society  has  passed  through  all  the  stages 
of  evolution  that  living  creatures  have,  and  has  been 
subject  to  all  the  laws,  principles,  and  processes  of 
evolution  in  general,  the  case  seems  to  be  pretty 
thoroughly  made  out.  From  a  confused,  chaotic,  homo- 
geneous state,  still  represented  by  many  low  tribes, 
there  have  gone  on  both  differentiation  and  integra- 
tion. From  the  several  degrees  of  social  differentia- 
tion shown  by  different  races,  a  classification  of  socie- 
ties is  made  possible." 


CHAPTER   IX 

TRANSITION    FROM    SPENCER  TO   RATZENHOFER 

In  philosophy  Herbert  Spencer  was  a  great  master;  in 
biology,  a  great  organizer ;  in  psychology,  a  great  founder 
and  in  sociology,  a  great  pioneer.  It  is  all  very  well  to 
say  that  Spencer's  sociology  is  out  of  date.  That  is 
only  true  in  a  little  larger  degree  than  would  be  the  as- 
sertion that  the  astronomy  of  Copernicus,  or  the  phys- 
ics of  Galileo,  are  out  of  date.  Spencer's  sociology  is 
one  of  the  rungs  of  the  ladder  by  which  his  successors 
have  been  able  to  climb.  As  no  science  can  be  com- 
pletely mastered  apart  from  its  history,  the  student  of 
sociology  must  thoroughly  study  the  works  of  its  two 
greatest  fore-runners — Comte  and  Spencer. 

Nothing  more  than  a  hint  has  been  given  as  yet  of 
Spencer's  individualism  and  his  adherence  to  the  vicious 
and  happily  discarded  doctrine  of  laissez  faire — (let 
things  go). 

This  policy  of  no  policy  is  the  most  unfortunate  ele- 
ment in  Spencer's  thinking  and  will  militate  against  his 
fame  all  the  more,  as  men  realize  its  utter  futility  and 
move,  as  they  are  ever  moving  and  have  always  really 
moved,  toward  the  doctrine  of  faire  marcher — (make 
things  go).  I  have  devoted  a  chapter  to  this  aspect  of 
Spencer's  teaching  in  "Evolution,  Social  and  Organic," 
and  one  to  Max  Stirner's  allied  theories,  in  "Ten  Blind 
Leaders  of  the  Blind."  We  shall  pass  it  here  and  treat 
it  later  when  we  deal  with  the  purpose  of  sociology. 

With  the  passage  from  Spencer  to  "^.atzenhofer  the 


TRANSITION   FROM   SPENCER  TO  RATZENHOFER  "      89 

whole  concept  of  Sociology  changes.  For  a  clear  ex- 
position of  the  nature  of  the  change,  the  student  is  in- 
debted to  Professor  Small's  invaluable  book,  before 
mentioned  and  quoted,  "General  Sociology."  It  is  in- 
deed this  transition  which  constitutes  Small's  chief 
theme,  and  its  able  and  brilliant  treatment  gives  Small's 
book  a  permanent  place  in  the  great  books  of  the  sci- 
ence. "Our  thesis,"  says  Small,  in  his  preface,  "is  that 
the  central  line  in  the  path  of  methodological  progress, 
from  Spencer  to  Ratsenhofer,  is  marked  by  gradual 
shifting  of  effort  from  analogical  representation  of  so- 
cial structures  to  real  analysis  of  social  processes'1 

The  italics  are  Small's.  Small  approaches  this  change 
through  the  avenue  of  definitions.  From  a  wide  variety 
of  definitions  by  a  host  of  sociological  writers,  he  selects 
the  definition  by  Ward  as  "the  most  compact  statement 
which  can  be  made  of  the  whole  subject-matter  which 
sociology  finds  it  necessary  to  treat."  That  definition  is : 
"Sociology  is  the  science  of  society,  or  the  science  of 
social  phenomena." 

Small  insists  that  J  variety  of  definitions  do  not 
imply  any  essential  antagonism  between  the  sociologists 
who  give  them,  but  rather  are  due  to  each  writer  focusing 
his  attention  on  some  different  aspect  of  the  science.  It 
will  have  been  observed  by  this  time  that  in  this  expo- 
sition of  modern  sociology  the  method  is,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, to  let  the  great  thinkers  speak  for  themselves. 
Small  explains  his  idea  in  the  following  interesting  and 
illuminating  passage: 

"In  presence  of  the  same  body  of  facts  about  human 
experience,  intellectual  interest  in  organizing  and  inter- 
preting the  facts  concentrates  in  several  distinct  ways. 


90  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

For  instance,  one  variety  of  thinkers  look  out  over  hu- 
man associations,  and  they  are  moved  to  ask:  'How  did 
men  come  to  associate  as  they  do  now?'  This  is  the 
typical  question  of  those  whose  primary  curiosity  is 
about  the  genetic  aspect  of  human  experience.  Think- 
ers of  another  variety  survey  the  same  facts,  and  they 
ask:  'How  do  men  manage  to  preserve  the  statu  quo?' 
This  question  voices  the  peculiar  interest  of  the  men 
who  care  more  for  insight  into  the  present  social  situa- 
tion, for  analysis  of  present  social  arrangements  and  the 
way  they  work,  than  for  knowledge  of  how  they  came 
into  existence.  A  third  variety  of  thinkers  are  relatively 
indifferent  to  both  these  questions,  and  they  ask  rather: 
'What  are  the  visible  indications  about  the  ways  in 
which  men  will  associate  in  the  future?'  This  is  the 
question  that  rallies  the  men  who  are  trying  to  make 
the  things  which  are  seen  disclose  those  that  are  unseen. 
It  is  the  question  of  the  seer,  the  idealist,  the  construct- 
ive philosopher.  To  him  past  and  present  are  nothing 
except  as  they  contain  and  reveal  the  future.  Still  an- 
other variety  of  men  take  for  granted  all  the  answers 
to  these  questions  that  seem  to  them  worth  considering, 
and  their  question  is :  'What  is  the  thing  to  do  here  and 
now,  in  order  to  make  the  better  future  that  is  to  be?' 
This  is  the  query  of  the  men  who  want  to  be  more  than 
mere  scholars.  They  want  to  accomplish  something. 
They  want  to  organize  rational  movements  for  making 
life  yield  increasing  proportions  of  its  possibilities."' 

After  discussing  at  length  four  typical  definitions, 
Small  arrives  at  a  fifth — "a  still  more  accurate  descrip- 
tion of  sociology  .  .  .  more  accurate  and  inclusive 
than  any  other  single  formula." 

This  definition  has  the  merit  of  expressing  the  dom- 
inant note  in  Ratzenhofer's  concept  and  with  it  Small 
closes  his  discussion  of  definitions — "Sociology  is  the 
science  of  the  social  process," 


TRANSITION    FROM    SPENCER  TO   RATZENHOFER         91 

Between  Spencer  and  Ratzenhofer,  Small  places 
Schaffle.  Schaffle  is  given  one  chapter  in  Small's  book, 
which  is  probably  more  than  he  deserves.  About  all 
that  Small  claims  for  him  is  that  he  places  rather  less 
emphasis  on  structure  and  a  little  more  on  function, 
than  Spencer,  thus  breaking  the  gap  between  Spencer 
and  Ratzenhofer.  This  paragraph  will  be  the  only  ref- 
erence to  Schaffle  in  this  book.  I  have  analyzed  the 
deluge  of  rubbish  which  floods  the  pages  of  his  "Im- 
possibility of  Social  Democracy"  and  those  who  care  to 
know  my  opinions  of  Schaffle  are  referred  to  my  chap- 
ter on  that  book  in  "Ten  Blind  Leaders  of  the  Blind." 

We  cannot,  of  course,  give  Ratzenhofer's  system  in 
detail.  His  own  epitome  of  it  is  given  by  Small  as  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  "General  Sociology."  We  shall 
note  certain  important  elements. 

Ratzenhofer  recognizes  that  all  social  organizations 
have  at  their  base  two  great  biological  necessities.  The 
first,  is  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  which  produces 
rivalry  for  food.  The  second,  is  the  sexual  instinct 
which  perpetuates  the  species  and  results  in  the  blood- 
bond.  This  blood-bond  is  the  origin  of  all  social  inter- 
relation and,  therefore,  all  primitive  social  structures  are 
based  on  community  of  origin.  The  increase  in  num- 
bers among  primitive  groups  leads  some  to  feel  the 
overcrowding  and,  wander  forth  to  new  lands,  or  if  the 
stronger  wish  to  remain,  war  breaks  out  and  the  weaker 
are  driven  forth.  This  spreads  the  human  race  over 
the  planet,  and  the  action  of  new  physical  environments 
leads  to  race  differentiation.  These  differentiated  races 
coming:  into  contact  leads  to  flight  or  battle.  The  con- 


92  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

quered  are  robbed  of  food  supply  and  abodes.  They 
themselves  are  at  first  killed ;  later  the  method  is  to  make 
them  prisoners  of  war.  After  being  subjugated,  they 
are  enslaved.  Thus  rulers  and  ruled  appear,  and  the 
rulers,  in  order  to  maintain  their  rule,  create  the  state. 

This  account  of  the  origin  of  the  state  is  in  essential 
harmony  with  the  socialist  philosophy  which  declares 
the  state  to  be  a  class  weapon  from  the  beginning  until 
now. 

The  rulers,  having  compelled  the  ruled  to  labor  for 
the  supplying  of  the  wants  of  both,  now  have  leisure, 
and  culture  arises.  Culture  promotes  commerce,  and 
"commerce  tends  to  spread  differentiation  without  limit 
over  all  social  structures."  "The  differentiation  and  the 
blending  of  social  structures  is  the  practical  content  of 
the  social  process."  x 

The  two  contending  forces  at  work  in  the  social  pro- 
cess are  differentiation,  the  result  of  the  impulse  to  in- 
dividualism, and  socialization,  or  "the  impulse  to  form 
communities."  "Differentiation  has  its  boundaries  in  the 
number  of  individuals,  that  is  to  say,  differentiation  can 
go  on  up  to  the  atomization  of  society,  because  each  in- 
dividual may  regard  his  own  interest  as  the  content  of 
a  social  structure.  Socialization  is  bounded  only  by 
humanity,  that  is  to  say,  'humanity'  may  become  a  so- 
cial structure,  if  throughout  that  most  inclusive  range 
a  unifying  interest  comes  to  be  felt  as  a  need." 

Ratzenhofer  undoubtedly  penetrates  to  the  real  nature 
of  social  order  when  he  describes  it  as  an  "organizing 
of  the  struggle  for  existence."  This  reason  for  the  ex- 
istence of  societies  is  purely  Darwinian.  Those  men 
who  formed  themselves  into  societies  had  an  advantage 


TRANSITION    FROM    SPENCER   TO    RATZENHOFER        93 

in  the  struggle  for  existence  over  others  who  remained 
isolated  or  in  small  groups.  We  now  know  that  the  his- 
tory of  the  human  race  is  the  history  of  a  long  struggle. 
The  struggle  has  been  against  other  species  of  living 
creatures  and  the  difficult  living  conditions  presented  by 
the  universe  itself.  In  this  struggle  against  the  uni- 
verse, man  has  employed  a  variety  of  weapons,  but 
none  that  have  proved  nearly  so  successful  as  social  or- 
ganization. For  this  reason,  Lester  F.  Ward  looks  upon 
society  as  a  human  invention,  somewhat  similar  to  the 
invention  of  agriculture  or  the  art  of  making  a  fire. 
The  idea  that  the  members  of  primitive  societies  con- 
sciously perceived  the  advantage  of  social  organization 
is  probably  somewhat  overdrawn.  Darwin  has  shown 
that  this  conscious  perception  of  advantage  is  not  neces- 
sary to  adoption.  Birds,  for  example,  build  their  nests 
and  are  great  gainers  thereby,  but  it  is  hardly  likely 
that  they  themselves  are  conscious  of  the  process  and 
its  resulting  advantages.  The  reason  all  birds  build 
nests  is  that  such  birds  as  once  might  have  existed  and 
did  not  build  nests  were  weeded  out  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  because  they  were  at  a  disadvantage  as 
against  the  nest  builders. 

The  early  struggles  of  men  were  not  only  against 
other  creatures  and  against  the  universe,  but  also  against 
other  men.  Those  men  who,  beginning  with  the  blood- 
bond,  expanded  their  social  organization  thereby  reaped 
advantages  which  enabled  them  to  survive,  while  others, 
failing  to  follow  their  example  or  not  following  it  ef- 
fectively, perished  or  were  exterminated.  The  Gypsies 
of  Europe  and  the  Indians  of  North  America  are  dis- 
appearing because  they  cannot  adapt  themselves  to,  or 


94  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

hold  their  own  wifh,  modern  social  organization.  It  is 
highly  probable  that  many  primitive  races  of  men  be- 
came extinct  because — for  various  reasons — they  did 
not  form  societies. 

We  now  come  to  another  luminous  concept  of  Rat- 
zenhofer's.  This  consists  of  what  Ratzenhofer  regarded 
as  the  political  principles.  These  are  two  in  number 
and  are  in  contrast  with  each  other;  one  is  called  the 
stereotyping  principle,  the  other,  the  innovating  princi- 
ple. The  first  tends  to  preserve  the  statu  quo;  the  sec- 
ond, to  introduce  changes.  Professor  Small  manifests 
an  equal  admiration  for  both  principles  and  holds  that 
"In  a  given  society,  the  stereotyping  factor  might  turn 
out  to  represent  the  program  that  in  the  end  would  be 
the  best  for  society."  This  is  all  very  well,  of  course, 
but  it  is  none  the  less  easy  to  see  that  there  could  be  no 
social  progress  apart  from  the  innovating  principle.  The 
chief  argument  against  innovation — in  fact  the  only  ar- 
gument— is  that  changes  might  be  made  prematurely. 
For  example,  the  exploited  workers  might  try  to  seize 
and  hold  the  tools  of  production  before  they  had  taken 
the  precaution  of  capturing,  or  at  least  hopelessly  cor- 
rupting, the  armed  forces  of  the  State.  Again,  the  same 
workers  might  seek  to  abolish  the  capitalist  class  before 
it  has  quite  finished  its  historic  task. 

Another  idea  of  Ratzenhofer's  that  well  deserves  to 
be  noticed  here  is  expressed  as  follows:  "The  social 
process  is  a  perpetual  readjustment  of  equilibrium  be- 
tween forces  that  tend  backward  toward  more  struggle 
and  those  that  tend  forward  toward  more  socialization." 


TRANSITION   FROM    SPENCER  TO   RATZENHOFER         95 

Thus  in  Ratzenhofer's  estimation  the  struggle  between 
man  and  man  is  not  the  most  desirable  condition,  and 
the  abolishing  of  all  struggle  in  favor  of  fraternal  co- 
operation is  the  chief  element  in  social  advance.  This 
is  a  sad  comment  on  those  leading  American  politi- 
cians who  would  like  to  be  regarded  as  statesmen,  with- 
out ever  having  deserved  the  name,  who  seem  to  think 
that  the  elimination  of  competition  is  the  chief  disaster 
of  modern  times.  The  various  plans  of  men  of  the 
Bryan,  Cummins,  La  Follette  type  for  a  return  to  com- 
petition is,  in  the  language  of  Ratzenhofer,  "an  effort  to 
go  backward  toward  more  struggle"  while  all  real  states- 
men, understanding  something  of  the  social  process, 
would  seek  to  go  forward  toward  more  co-operation 
and  socialization. 


CHAPTER    X 

THE  PLACE  OF  KARL  MARX  IN  SOCIOLOGY 

The  reader  who  has  traveled  thus  far  will  now  realize 
that  the  greatest  single  achievement  of  the  science  of 
sociology  is  the  concept  of  society,  not  as  a  collection  of 
institutions,  and  sociology  as  an  explanatory  catalogue  or 
inventory — after  the  fashion  of  Spencer,  but  as  a  process 
of  development,  and  the  science  of  sociology  as  the 
analysis  and  explanation  of  the  process.  This  concept 
is  identical  with  the  "Pure  Sociology"  of  Lester  F. 
Ward.  The  only  advance,  to  date,  on  this  concept  is 
the  "Applied  Sociology"  of  Ward.  And  be  it  clearly 
understood  that  the  concept  of  applied  sociology  does 
not  displace  pure  sociology  in  any  sense,  as  for  exam- 
ple, the  sociology  of  process  does,  in  a  measure,  displace 
the  Spencerian  sociology  of  structure. 

The  reader  of  Spencer  will  probably  find  in  his  work 
enough  reference  to  the  functions  of  social  structures 
to  raise  a  doubt  as  to  the  justice  of  speaking  of  struc- 
tural sociology  as  typical  of  Spencer.  For  the  benefit 
of  such  readers,  let  us  once  more  call  attention  to 
the  arrangement  of  his  three  volumes  of  "The  Princi- 
ples of  Sociology."  That  the  inventory  of  society's  assets 
in  the  form  of  social  institutions  was  Spencer's  domi- 
nant idea,  will  then  stand  clearly  forth. 

FIRST  VOLUME 

I.     The  Data  of  Sociology. 
II.     The  Inductions  of  Sociology. 
III.     Domestic  Institutions. 

96 


THE  PLACE  OF  KARL  MARX  IN   SOCIOLOGY  97 

SECOND  VOLUME 

IV.  Ceremonial  Institutions. 

V.  Political  Institutions. 

THIRD   VOLUME 

VI.  Ecclesiastical  Institutions. 
VII.     Professional  Institutions. 

VIII.     Industrial  Institutions. 

The  above  is  the  complete  contents  tables  of  Spencer's 
three  volumes,  except  that  it  does  not  give  the  subdi- 
visions. Professor  Small  justly  cites  Spencer's  use  of 
the  definite  article  "The"  in  "The  Data  of  Sociology" 
as  indicating  the  limitation  of  Spencer  in  assuming,  his 
own  hints  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  that  all  the 
essentials  of  social  phenomena  could  be  found  in  the 
social  structures  and  ideas  of  primitive  men. 

The  progress  of  sociology  from  the  limitations  of 
Spencer  to  its  present  status,  is  due  to  the  gen- 
eral consensus  of  the  labors  of  a  number  of  .pro- 
found and  brilliant  thinkers.  The  histories  of  so- 
ciology, such  as  have  been  written,  seek  to  allot 
to  each  of  these  a  proper  place  in  accordance  with 
the  value  of  his  work.  There  is  one  name,  how- 
ever, which  should  loom  large  in  such  records, 
which  is  usually  passed  over  entirely  or.  treated  only 
to  a  passing  reference.  This  is  the  name  of  Karl 
Marx.  The  two  chapters  on  "The  History  of  Sociology" 
in  Small's  "General  Sociology"  are  a  case  in  point. 
This  altogether  unjust  treatment  of  the  great  German- 
Jew  is  about  what  might  be  expected  from  the  sociolo- 
gists of  the  chair.  These  reasons  have  no  weight  with 


98  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

us,  and  we  shall  endeavor  to  give  Marx  his  place  with- 
out going  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  an  over-empha- 
sizing partisanship. 

Rash  and  ill-judged  statements  have  no  proper  place 
in  a  book  of  this  kind,  and  I  believe  I  am  guiltless  under 
either  charge  when  I  assert  that  Marx  has  been  ignored 
or  jeered  at  chiefly  because  of  the  moral  cowardice  of 
the  men  who  have  been  his  detractors.  As  we  shall  see 
in  the  next  chapter,  I  hold  this  view  in  common  with 
a  leading  university  professor  of  sociology,  except  that 
the  professor,  whom  we  shall  shortly  quote  at  length, 
would  not  be  so  explicit  in  his  choice  of  terms.  All 
history  is  evidence  that  only  the  most  courageous  men 
have  dared  to  fly  in  the  face  of  conventionality.  Most 
men  not  only  lack  the  courage  to  do  this  but  they  are 
too  pusillanimous  to  applaud  their  superiors  who  do. 
Marx  not  only  had  the  genius  of  a  Galileo  or  a  Bruno, 
he  also  had  their  sublime  courage  and  daring.  While 
he  lived  late  enough  to  escape  the  faggot  and  the  stake, 
he  endured  long  exiles  from  his  country  and  lived  dur- 
ing these  periods  of  exile  in  the  direst  poverty.  Some 
day  history  will  do  proper  justice  to  his  pigmy-minded, 
hare-hearted  maligners,  who  sneered  at  a  man  whose 
shoes  they  were  unfit  to  polish,  and  whose  ideas  were 
beyond  their  intellectual  range. 

Among  the  less  discreditable  reasons  for  ignoring  the 
work  of  Marx  in»the  field  of  sociology,  are  first,  that 
Marx  did  not  call  himself  a  sociologist,  and  second,  that 
he  is  popularly  supposed  to  have  worked  only  in  a  nar- 
row subdivision  of  the  science. 

Small  tells  of  an  eminent  professor  who  began  a  course 


THE  PLACE  OF  KARL   MARX   IN   SOCIOLOGY  99 

of  lectures  on  sociology  with  the  definition:  "Sociology 
is  the  science  that  deals  with  the  labor  problem."  He 
very  justly  condemns  this  definition  as  comparing  with 
a  definition  of  physics  as  "the  science  that  deals  with 
water  wheels"  or  of  chemistry  as  "the  science  that  deals 
with  sterilizing-  milk."  Small  very  properly  holds  that 
while  each  proposition  tells  the  truth,  it  "tells  such  a 
minute  fraction  of  the  truth  that  it  is  ridiculous."  The 
only  comment  that  suggests  itself  is  that  the  "fraction" 
in  the  first  case  is  not  so  "tiny"  as  in  the  two  latter  ones. 

None  of  these  three  definitions  are  more  ridiculous 
than  the  assumption  (of  which  Small  himself  is  not 
guilty)  that  the  sociology  of  Marx  is  merely  a  sociology 
of  the  labor  problem.  It  is  equally  ridiculous  to 
assume  such  a  limitation  in  Marx  on  the  ground  that 
certain  of  his  conclusions  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
the  labor  problem.  If  a  sociologist  is  to  be  judged  by 
his  grasp  of  the  social  process  and  its  laws,  we  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying  that  as  a  sociologist,  Marx  has  no 
superior  in  the  entire  range  of  the  science.  In  one  im- 
portant respect  he  vastly  transcended  Spencer.  Instead 
of  seeking  his  "data"  among  primitive  savages,  he  ana- 
lyzed the  social  forms  and  process  of  the  most  highly 
developed  country  of  his  day — England.  And  this  was 
no  accident.  Engels  explains  that  Marx  selected  Eng- 
land becaus'e  it  presented  the  most  complete  development 
of  that  machine  process  which  is  the  latest  product  of 
social  progress. 

Speaking  for  myself,  I  share  Small's  admiration  of 
Ratzenhofer;  I  regard  Lester  F.  Ward  as  the  greatest 
living  sociologist;  I  consider  "The  Positive  Philosophy" 


100  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

an  epoch-making  book,  despite  its  remarkable  blunders ;  I 
regard  Spencer  as  one  of  the  greatest  geniuses  of  his 
own  or  any  age,  notwithstanding  his  characterizing  of 
the  form  of  society  for  which  I  most  fervently  hope  as 
"The  Coming  Slavery;"  I  think  that  Small  has  ren- 
dered to  sociology  service  of  the  highest  order ;  I  recog- 
nize valuable  ideas  in  the  works  of  Professor  Giddings, 
though  I  am  astounded  at  his  extremely  high  rating  of 
Christian  philanthropy  and  Christian  missionaries  as 
great  social  factors;  I  can  appreciate  Gumplowicz,  while 
rejecting  totally  his  main  idea  of  the  uselessness  of  ef- 
fort; I  read  with  pleasure  the  keenly  analytical  pages 
of  Professor  Ross;  and  this  list  of  brilliant  laborers  in 
the  sociological  field  might  flow  on  like  a  river,  but  I 
wish  to  say  plainly  that  nowhere  in  tha  output  of  so- 
ciologists have  I  found  a  more  keenly  penetrating  analy- 
sis of  the  social  process,  or  a  more  philosophical  and 
comprehensive  grasp  of  the  immanent  laws  of  that  pro- 
cess, than  in  the  luminous  and  closely  reasoned  pages 
of  the  founder  of  scientific  socialism. 

In  pursuance  of  this  contention  we  shall  now  read 
two  passages  from  the  writings  of  Marx  which  are  ex- 
amples of  his  penetration  to  the  very  core  of  the  social 
process.  The  first  is  from  the  preface  of  his  earliest 
book  "The  Critique  of  Political  Economy,"  and  gives 
the  substance  of  his  conception  of  the  social  process  as 
it  unfolds  itself  in  history: 

"The  general  conclusion  at  which  I  arrived  and  which, 
once  reached,  continued  to  serve  as  the  leading  thread 
in  my  studies,  may  be  briefly  summed  up  as  follows: 
In  the  social  production  which  men  carry  on  they  enter 
into  definite  relations  that  are  indispensable  and  inde- 


THE  PLACE  OF  KARL  MARX  IN  SOCIOLOGY    101 

pendent  of  their  will ;  these  relations  of  production  cor- 
respond to  a  definite  stage  of  development  of  their  ma- 
terial powers  of  production.  The  sum  total  of  these  re- 
lations of  production  constitutes  the  economic  structure 
of  society — the  real  foundation,  on  which  rise  legal  and 
political  superstructures  and  to  which  correspond  defi- 
nite forms  of  social  consciousness.  The  mode  of  pro- 
duction in  material  life  determines  the  general  charac- 
ter of  the  social,  political  and  spiritual  processes  of  life. 
It  is  not  the  consciousness  of  men  that  determines  their 
existence,  but,  on  the  contrary,  their  social  existence  de- 
termines their  consciousness.  At  a  certain  stage  of  their 
development,  the  material  forces  of  production  in  so- 
ciety come  in  conflict  with  the  existing  relations  of  pro- 
duction, or — what  is  but  a  legal  expression  for  the  same 
thing — with  the  property  relations  within  which  they 
have  been  at  work  before.  From  forms  of  development 
of  the  forces  of  production  these  relations  turn  into  their 
fetters.  Then  comes  the  period  of  social  revolution. 
With  the  change  of  the  economic  foundation  the  entire 
immense  superstructure  is  more  or  less  rapidly  trans- 
formed. In  considering  such  transformations  the  dis- 
tinction should  always  be  made  between  the  material 
transformation  of  the  economic  conditions  of  production 
which  can  be  determined  with  the  precision  of  natural 
science,  and  the  legal,  political,  religious,  aesthetic  or 
philosophic — in  short  ideological  forms  in  which  men 
become  conscious  of  this  conflict  and  fight  it  out.  Just 
as  our  opinion  of  an  individual  is  not  based  on  what 
he  thinks  of  himself,  so  can  we  not  judge  of  such  a 
period  of  transformation  by  its  own  consciousness;  on 
the  contrary,  this  consciousness  must  rather  be  explained 
from  the  contradictions  of  material  life,  from  the  exist- 
ing conflict  between  the  sodal  forces  of  production  and 
the  relations  of  production.  No  social  order  ever  dis- 
appears before  all  the  productive  forces  for  whidi 
there  is  room  in  it,  have  been  developed ;  and  new  higher 
relations  of  production  never  appear  before  the  material 


102  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

conditions  of  their  existence  have  matured  in  the  womb 
of  the  old  society.  Therefore,  mankind  always  takes 
up  only  such  problems  as  it  can  solve;  since,  looking  at 
the  matter  more  closely,  we  will  always  find  that  the 
problem  itself  arises  only  when  the  material  conditions 
necessary  for  its  solution  already  exist  or  are  at  least 
.in  the  process  of  formation.  In  broad  outlines  we  can 
designate  the  Asiatic,  the  ancient,  the  feudal,  and  the 
modern  bourgeois  methods  of  production  as  so  many 
epochs  in  the  progress  of  the  economic  formation  of  so- 
ciety. The  bourgeois  relations  of  production  are  the 
last  antagonistic  form  of  the  social  process  of  production 
— antagonistic  not  in  the  sense  of  individual  antagon- 
ism, but  of  one  arising  from  conditions  surrounding  the 
life  of  individuals  in  society;  at  the  same  time  the  pro- 
ductive forces  developing  in  the  womb  of  bourgeois  so- 
ciety create  the  material  conditions  for  the  solution  of 
that  antagonism.  This  social  formation  constitutes, 
therefore,  the  closing  chapter  of  the  prehistoric  stage 
of  human  society." 

The  second  passage  is  of  later  date  and  deals  with 
society  as  it  is  and  is,  like  the  first,  prophetic  of  a  so- 
ciety to  come: 

"As  soon  as  the  laborers  are  turned  into  proletarians, 
their  means  of  production  into  capital,  as  soon  as  the 
capitalist  mode  of  production  stands  on  its  own  feet, 
then  the  further  socialization  of  labor  and  the  further 
transformation  of  the  land  and  other  means  of  production 
into  socially  exploited  and,  therefore,  common  means 
of  production,  as  well  as  the  further  expropriation  of 
private  properties,  takes  a  new  form.  That  which  is 
now  to  be  expropriated  is  no  longer  the  laborer  working 
for  himself,  but  the  capitalist  exploiting  many  laborers. 
This  expropriation  is  accomplished  by  the  action  of  the 
immanent  laws  of  capitalistic  production  itself,  by  the 


THE  PLACE  OF  KARL  MARX   IN   SOCIOLOGY  103 

centralization  of  capital.  One  capitalist  always  kills 
many.  Hand  in  hand  with  this  centralization,  or  this 
expropriation  of  many  capitalists  by  few,  develop,  on  an 
ever-extending  scale,  the  co-operative  form  of  the  labor 
process,  the  conscious  technical  application  of  science, 
the  methodical  cultivation  of  the  soil,  the  transformation 
of  the  instruments  of  labor  into  instruments  of  labor  only 
usable  in  common,  the  economizing  of  all  means  of  pro- 
duction by  their  use  as  the  means  of  production  of  com- 
bined, socialized  labor,  the  entanglement  of  all  peoples 
in  the  net  of  the  world-market,  and  with  this,  the  inter- 
national character  of  the  capitalistic  regime.  Along  with 
•the  constantly  diminishing  number  of  the  magnates  of 
capital,  who  usurp  and  monopolize  all  the  advantages 
of  this  process  of  transformation,  grows  the  mass  of 
misery,  oppression,  slavery,  degradation,  exploita- 
tion; but  with  this  too  grows  the  revolt  of  the 
working  class,  a  class  always  increasing  in  numbers,  and 
disciplined,  united,  organized  by  the  very  mechanism  of 
the  process  of  capitalist  production  itself.  The  monop- 
oly of  capital  becomes  a  fetter  upon  the  mode  of  pro- 
duction, which  has  sprung  up  and  flourished  along  with, 
and  under  it.  Centralization  of  the  means  of  production 
and  socialization  of  labor  at  last  reach  a  point  where 
they  become  incompatible  with  their  capitalist  integu- 
ment. This  integument  is  burst  asunder.  The  knell 
of  capitalist  private  property  sounds.  The  expropria- 
tors are  expropriated." 

The  current  year  has  given  us  an  example  of  plain 
speaking  on  an  hitherto  tabooed  subject  which  may  well 
be,  in  university  circles,  the  beginning  of  better  things. 
Professor  Small's  lecture  on  "Socialism  in  the  Light  of 
Social  Science,"  delivered  before  the  Chicago  Woman's 
Club,  and  published  in  the  May,  1912,  number  of  The 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  is  so  frank  and  refresh- 


104  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ing  as  to  well  deserve  the  widest  possible  circle  of 
readers.  As  a  contribution  in  this  direction,  we  shall 
devote  the  next  chapter  to  the  reproduction  of  such  parts 
of  the  lecture  as  t>ear  most  directly  on  the  subject 
raised  in  this. 


CHAPTER  XI 
SMALL'S  ESTIMATE  OF  MARX 

The  introduction  to  this  chapter  will  be  found  on  the 
closing  page  of  the  preceding  one.  It  is  needless  to 
say  there  is  much  in  the  following  to  which  I  do  not 
subscribe,  but  where  so  many  excellent  things  are  said 
one  does  not  feel  disposed  to  "answer"  the  rest.  We 
are  not  quoting  the  entire  lecture  but  the  quotation  is 
continuous;  from  the  point  of  beginning  to  its  close 
nothing  is  omitted.  Not  the  least  of  its  merits  is  the 
high  source  from  whence  it  comes.  Professor  Small 
is  Dean  of  the  Sociology  Department  of  the  University 
of  Chicago  and  Editor-in-Chief  of  "The  American  Jour- 
nal of  Sociology" : 

"Socialism  has  been  the  most  wholesome  ferment  in 
modern  society.  If  we  have  no  socialism  in  either  of 
the  senses  just  eliminated,  what  have  we?  Well,  to 
begin  with,  we  have  merely  a  greater  mass  and  more 
specific  expressions  of  something  that  is  as  old  as  the 
human  race.  There  have  always  been  men  who  looked 
upon  mooted  questions  from  the  standpoint  of  those 
who  had  arrived.  There  have  always  been  other  men 
who  looked  upon  mooted  questions  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  larger  number  made  up  partly  of  those  who  had 
not  arrived,  partly  of  those  who  were  arriving,  and,  most 
important  of  all,  partly  of  those  who  hoped  to  arrive. 
The  question  of  arrival  has  not  necessarily  determined 
choice  between  these  standpoints.  Something  in  occu- 
pation or  in  tone  of  feeling  may  have  inverted  manifest 
destiny  in  this  regard,  but  if  we  boil  down  the  ideas  of 
men  the  world  over  and  the  ages  through  we  find  that 

105 


106  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

there  has  always  been  a  more  or  less  evident  division  of 
men  into  those  who  looked  upon  life  with  the  eyes  of 
those  who  had  reached  secure  standing  ground,  and 
those  who  regarded  things  from  the  situation  of  those 
who  were  struggling  for  place.  The  former  have  al- 
ways been  the  minority.  Their  presumption  has  always 
been  that  things  were  about  as  well  settled  as  they  could 
be,  and  that  all  good  citizens  should  be  content  with  the 
established  order.  The  latter  have  always  been  the  vast 
majority,  and  as  a  rule  the  social  influence  of  the  two 
strata  at  a  given  moment  has  been,  let  us  say  it  at  a 
venture,  something  like  the  inverse  of  the  cube  of  their 
numbers.  Roughly  speaking,  the  ability  of  the  majority 
to  voice  its  feelings  has  steadily  increased  throughout 
historic  times.  There  have  always  been  men  who  called 
themselves  by  some  equivalent  of  the  term  democrat. 
They  have  had  in  common  some  variation  of  the  pre- 
supposition that  the  world  belongs  to  the  many,  not  to 
the  few.  Beyond  that  they  resembled  each  other  chiefly 
in  bringing  each  some  peculiar  charge  or  charges  against 
the  existing  order,  in  pressing  the  claim  that  human  af- 
fairs are  not  as  they  should  be.  So  far  as  I  can  learn, 
none  of  these  spokesmen  of  the  majority  thought  to  call 
themselves  socialists  until  after  1845,  when  Leroux  coined 
the  word.  Since  1776,  however,  the  number  of  these 
men  who  thought  and  spoke  for  the  many  has  increased. 
The  collusiveness  of  the  things  they  had  to  say  in  be- 
half of  the  many  may  not  have  increased  in  equal  pro- 
portion. The  confidence  of  the  prophets  of  the  many  in 
the  force  of  their  message  has  certainly  gained  assur- 
ance, and  the  aggregate  of  these  popular  utterances  has 
gathered  volume.  We  have  had  then,  since  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  a  rising  tide  of  popular  power 
and  of  corresponding  popular  self-assertion.  Every- 
where social  institutions  which  have  been  aristocratically 
social  institutions  which  have  been  aristocratically 
evolved  encounter  a  unique  challenge  of  democratic  crit- 


SMALL'S  ESTIMATE  OF  MARX  107 

icism.  The  majority  is  taking  a  larger  hand  in  its  own 
affairs.  To  a  great  extent  the  participation  of  the  ma- 
jority is  vague,  incoherent,  jangling,  unorganized,  but 
it  has  on  the  whole  a  lift  and  a  thrust  which  is  inevitable 
and  irresistible. 

"The  most  efficient  theoretical  factor  in  promoting  the 
flow  of  this  popular  tide  has  been  Marxian  socialism. 
When  I  say  that  I  am  disposed  to  analyze  the  proposi- 
tion into  the  component  parts,  90  per  cent  Karl  Marx 
and  10  per  cent  his  followers. 

"Marx  was  one  of  the  few  really  great  thinkers  in 
the  history  of  social  science.  His  repute  thus  far  has 
been  that  of  every  challenger  of  tradition.  All  the  con- 
ventional, the  world  over,  from  the  multitude  of  intel- 
lectual nonenties  to  thinkers  whose  failure  to  acknowl- 
edge in  him  more  than  a  peer  has  seriously  impeached 
their  candor,  have  implicitly  conspired  to  smother  his 
influence  by  all  the  means  known  to  obscuration.  From 
outlawry  to  averted  glances,  every  device  of  repression 
and  misrepresentation  has  been  employed  against  him. 
Up  to  the  present  time  the  appellate  court  of  the  world's 
sober  second  thought  has  not  given  him  as  fair  a  hear- 
ing as  it  has  granted  to  Judas  Iscariot.  The  little  book 
entitled  The  Economic  Interpretation  of  History,  pub- 
lished by  Professor  Seligman  of  Columbia  in  1902,  re- 
mains conspicuous  in  its  loneliness  as  an  exception  to 
the  general  rule.  Men  in  dignified  academic  positions 
still  refrain  in  public  from  giving  Marx  his  due.  He  is 
worthy  of  the  most  respectful  treatment  which  thinkers 
can  pay  to  another  thinker  whose  argument  has  never 
been  successfully  answered.  It  is  a  Herculean  task  to 
analyze  a  conventionalized  world  with  unconventional 
results  and  to  make  out  such  a  measure  of  probability 
for  the  results  that  the  exhibit  puzzles,  if  it  does  not 
convince,  the  conventional-minded.  Marx  certainly  did 
this.  No  man  has  done  more  than  he  to  strengthen  the 
democratic  suspicion  that  the  presuppositions  of  our  pres- 
ent social  .system  are  superficial  arid  provisional.  I  do 


108  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

not  think  that  Marx  added  to  social  science  a  single  for- 
mula which  will  be  final  in  the  terms  in  which  he  ex- 
pressed it.  In  spite  of  that,  I  confidently  predict  that 
in  the  ultimate  judgment  of  history  Marx  will  have  a 
place  in  social  science  analogous  with  that  of  Galileo  in 
physical  science.  He  found  a  world  organized,  in  its 
practice  and  its  theory,  around  capital.  He  declared  that 
the  world  will  remain  impossibly  arbitrary  until  its  the- 
ory and  its  practice  center  around  labor.  This  was  in 
substance  by  no  means  a  novel  utterance.  Adam  Smith 
had  said  it,  but  he  was  appalled  by  his  own  irreverence 
and  promptly  retracted  it.  Marx  said  it  with  the  force, 
the  detail,  and  the  corroborating  evidence  of  a  revelation. 
He  is  still  a  voice  in  the  wilderness,  but  for  one  I  have 
no  more  doubt  that  he  was  essentially  right,  and  that 
conventionality  was  essentially  wrong,  than  I  have  that 
Galileo  will  hold  his  place  to  the  end  of  time  as  one  of 
the  world's  great  discoverers. 

"After  what  I  have  said,  I  shall  not  be  expected  to 
undertake  a  defense  or  even  an  interpretation  of  specific 
Marxian  doctrines.  As  I  have  hinted,  the  precise  con- 
tent of  his  theory,  or  the  degree  of  its  approach  to  cor- 
rectness, is  of  less  permanent  importance  than,  first,  the 
negative  fact  that  he  impeached  the  entire  theoretical 
basis  of  our  capitalistic  system,  and  second,  the  positive 
fact  that  he  designated  factors  in  the  capitalistic  system 
which  were  working  badly  in  practice  or  were  wrongly 
rated  in  theory  or  both.  Accordingly  he  was  a  con- 
structive agent  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  engineers 
were  who  bored  into  the  floor  of  Hell  Gate  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  dynamite  and  the  dredges.  Many  lead- 
ing thinkers,  especially  in  Germany,  were  already  pur- 
suing aims  closely  related  to  those  of  Marx,  along  lines 
which  might  be  likened  to  attempts  to  develop  more 
skilful  pilots.  Marx's  program  was  to  deepen  and  widen 
and  straighten  the  channel. 

"In  other  words,  nobody  since  Martin  Luther  has  done 
as  much  as  Karl  Marx  to  make  the  conventional-minded 


SMALL'S  ESTIMATE  OF  MARX  109 

fear  that  our  theories  of  life  may  need  a  thorough  over- 
hauling. The  longer  that  overhauling  is  postponed  the 
greater  will  be  the  repute  of  Marx  after  the  crisis  is 
passed,  and  the  more  fatuous  will  the  interests  appear 
that  are  meanwhile  repressing  the  inevitable. 

"I  will  speak  of  five  particulars  in  which  Marx  chal- 
lenged prevailing  ideas.  In  the  first  place  he  alleged  that 
the  world  must  set  itself  right  about  the  economic  inter- 
pretation of  history.  What  is  this  "economic  interpreta- 
tion of  history"?  The  books  and  essays  that  have  been 
written  to  prove  that  Marx  did  not  say  precisely,  and 
that  so  far  as  he  did  say  he  was  not  correct,  amount  to 
a  considerable  library.  And  the  writers  of  conventional 
books  and  essays  and  editorials  have  jeered  and  gloated 
and  denounced,  as  though  it  were  something  immensely 
to  Marx's  discredit  that  he  did  not  give  society  an  in- 
fallibly complete  new  analysis  of  itself,  and  something 
immensely  to  their  credit  that  they  were  glad  of  it.  Good 
form  in  this  connection  has  been  very  much  like  meet- 
ing the  child  that  rushes  into  the  parlor  to  report  that 
the  house  is  on'fire  with  directions  to  retire  and  rehearse 
his  company  manners.  Not  to  break  into  the  contro- 
versy as  to  what  Marx  did  or  did  not  say  about  the 
economic  interpretation  of  history,  or  how  much  more 
remains  to  be  said,  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter  is  the 
homely  fact  that  if  there  is  anything  insecure  about  a 
man's  chances  of  getting  tomorrow's  dinner,  or  anything 
unjust  about  the  ways  in  which  he  is  forced  to  use  the 
chances,  there  will  be  nothing  quite  right  about  the  rest 
of  his  mental  or  emotional  or  moral  life.  Or,  to  express 
it  in  the  social  instead  of  the  individual  form,  if  there 
are  crudities  or  injustices  in  our  economic  system,  to 
that  extent  those  of  us  who  gain  by  the  anomalies  will 
be  getting  something  for  nothing,  while  those  who  lose 
by  them  will  be  deprived  of  a  square  deal.  Marx  said 
in  substance  that  there  is  not  a  private  business  on  earth 
that  could  exhibit  inconsistencies  as  glaring  as  the  in- 


110  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

dustrial  system  of  every  modern  nation  presents,  without 
being  due  for  reorganization  or  the  receiver.  The  only 
remarkable  thing  about  this  proposition  it  that  there  are 
still  intelligent  human  beings  of  adult  age  who  have  not 
discovered  that  it  is  a  commonplace. 

"Second,  Marx  called  attention  to  class  conflict,  as  a 
primary  factor  in  human  history,  and  he  tried  to  rouse 
the  classes  that  have  no  resource  but  their  labor  to  open 
their  eyes  to  their  own  interests  in  the  situation,  to  be- 
come 'class  conscious/  and  to  pursue  their  own  inter- 
ests as  intelligently  as  the  competing  classes  pursue 
theirs.  Truly  this  is  a  most  impertinent  and  inhuman  per- 
versity !  What  would  the  world  come  to  if  everyone  should 
be  as  keen  as  we  are  for  the  main  chance?  What  would 
happen  to  that  smug  old  fiction  of  the  'industrial  harmon- 
ies,' that  Magna  Charta  of  vested  interest,  that  notice 
to  the  labor  class  that  it  must  be  content  with  what  is 
left  to  it  after  privilege  has  been  supplied?  What  social 
order  would  be  left  if  the  man  who  is  down  should  ever 
become  as  class  conscious  in  trying  to  get  up  as  the 
classes  who  have  arrived  are  in  clinging  to  what  they 
have  got?  ^  ' 

"Accordingly,  more  crocodile's  tears  have  been  shed 
over  Marx's  recourse  to  class  conflict  than  over  any 
other  mooted  conception  in  the  whole  field  of  social  sci- 
ence. The  first  type  of  deprecation  has  already  been  in- 
dicated. It  is  grieved  and  indignant  denial  that  such  a 
thing  as  class  conflict  exists  in  the  world.  We  need  not 
stop  to  parley  with  this  inanity.  No  one  gets  through  a 
primer  of  social  science  today  without  learning  that  class 
conflict  is  to  the  social  process  what  friction  is  to  me- 
chanics. It  is  one  of  the  elemental  reactions  between 
human  beings.  Its  accidents  only  have  changed  and  are 
changing.  Its  essentials  are  apparently  permanent.  The 
original  lineup  on  'Schedule  K'  was  between  farmer 
Cain  and  shepherd  Abel.  There  is  not  a  philosopher  or 
artist  or  poet  or  scientist  who  does  not  get  his  leverage 


SMALL'S  ESTIMATE  OF  MARX  111 

on  life  by  struggle  with  men  in  his  own  and  other 
classes  who  furnish  reaction  to  his  action.  The  fact  of 
class  struggle  is  as  axiomatic  today  as  the  fact  of  gravi- 
tation. 

"But  both  ingenuous  and  disingenuous  men  have  de- 
cried Marx  as  a  fomenter  of  class  struggle,  and  they 
have  tried  to  distract  attention  from  irrepressible  issues 
between  present  classes  by  exposing  the  wickedness  of 
stirring  up  industrial  strife.  There  is  truth  on  this  side, 
too,  but  modern  capitalists  and  their  attorneys  have  no 
right  to  plead  it.  Who  has  taught  our  generation,  by 
word  and  deed,  that  competition  is  war?  The  human 
process  is  at  best  no  Quaker  meeting.  The  struggle  of 
interest  with  interest,  which  is  merely  an  alternative  way 
of  saying  'human  process/  has  not  yet  reached  the 
stage  in  which  turning  the  other  cheek  is  a  frequent  oc- 
currence. The  only  people  who  are  generally  under- 
stood or  respected  today  are  those  who  think  they  have 
rights  and  accordingly  fight  for  them.  The  classes  that 
have  fought  their  way  into  the  security  of  our  property 
system  show  themselves  either  hypocritical  or  stupid 
when  they  blame  the  backward  classes  for  declaring  war 
for  the  same  kind  of  conquest.  No  matter  how  firmly 
we  believe  in  the  ideals  and  methods  of  peace,  we  can 
have  nothing  but  contempt  for  the  self -righteousness  of 
classes  already  armed  and  entrenched  when  they  try  to 
dodge  the  issue  by  pointing  to  the  sinfulness  of  their 
rivals'  call  to  arms.  The  conventionalists  have  no  better 
case  against  Marx  and  his  followers  on  this  score  than 
Charles  I  had  against  John  Hampden,  or  George  III 
against  John  Adams,  or  Jefferson  Davis  against  Wendell 
Phillips. 

"Third,  Marx  put  a  new  emphasis  on  the  rudimentary 
economic  fact  of  surplus  value.  Again  I  purposely  avoid 
attempting  to  give  Marx's  particular  version  of  the  fact 
The  main  thing  is  that  he  called  for  new  attention  to 
this  vital  element  in  the  industrial  situation.  My  own 


112  AN   INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

judgment  is  that  Marx  was  as  one-sided  in  his  ideas 
about  'surplus  value'  as  capitalistic  orthodoxy  was.  This 
is  merely  another  way  of  saying  that  both  were  intellec- 
tually wrong.  In  human  affairs,  however,  that  party  is 
always  morally  right  which  demands  further  investiga- 
tion of  debatable  questions.  That  party  is  always  mor- 
ally wrong  which  demands  that  debatable  questions  shall 
be  treated  as  res  judicata.  According  to  the  traditional 
economic  theory,  land,  labor,  and  capital  are  the  factors 
in  production.  According  to  that  same  theory,  the  law 
of  supply  and  demand  assigns  to  each  factor  its  fair 
share  in  the  product.  In  fact,  when  a  business  is  pros- 
perous, these  three  factors  in  the  enterprise  receive  each 
its  market  rate  of  compensation,  and  yet  there  remains 
a  surplus.  What  follows?  Does  the  system  presume 
that  the  three  factors  concerned  in  creating  this  surplus 
must  be  recognized  in  its  distribution?  By  no  means. 
The  copartnership  of  land,  labor,  and  capital  was  all 
well  enough  in  production,  and  in  the  preliminary  dis- 
tribution of  the  market  rate  of  rent,  wages,  and  interest. 
By  some  right  which  capitalism  assumes,  but  does  not 
account  for,  the  partnership  ceases  and  determines  in 
the  presence  of  the  surplus.  An  unprejudiced  observer 
would  suppose  that  the  three  parties  necessary  to  the 
production  of  that  surplus  would  have  equally  valid 
claims  to  a  share  in  distribution  of  the  surplus.  In  what 
proportion  they  ought  to  share  is  a  question  by  itself, 
and  it  should  not  confuse  the  fundamental  issue.  All 
the  partners  in  production  should  presumably  be  part- 
ners, not  merely  in  the  preliminary  rough-and-ready  dis- 
tribution, but  in  the  final  distribution.  Conventional 
theory  repudiated  this  reasoning  and  claimed  the  whole 
of  the  surplus  for  capital,  under  the  title  profits  or  divi- 
dends. The  precedents  of  business  are  mostly  against 
Marx.  The  logic  that  appeals  to  the  dispassionate  ob- 
server is  strongly  on  his  side.  The  theory  that  accounts 
for  three  partners  in  the  producing  process,  but  loses 


SMALL'S  ESTIMATE  OF  MARX  113 

sight  of  all  but  one  of  them  in  the  middle  of  the  distrib- 
uting process  may  satisfy  the  one  beautifully,  but  it  will 
never  permanently  satisfy  the  other  two  nor  their  re- 
flecting neighbors.  It  fails  to  convince  as  ignominiously 
as  the  technique  of  the  boy  who  took  the  clock  apart  and 
put  it  together  again  with  one  wheel  left  out! 

"These  three  ideas,  the  economic  interpretation  of  his- 
tory, class  conflict,  and  surplus  value,  are  the  chief  points 
of  departure  in  Marx's  attempt  at  a  scientific  survey  of 
the  modern  social  situation.  If  it  were  a  pure  topograph- 
ical problem,  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  any  compe- 
tent engineer  would  question  the  necessity  of  replotting 
the  old  survey.  So  many  human  passions  and  interests 
are  stimulated  by  challenge  of  tradition,  however,  that 
thus  far  it  has  been  possible  to  keep  the  Marxian  im- 
pulse from  the  degree  of  social  influence  which  it  de- 
serves. 

"Two  other  points  in  the  Marxian  outlook  must  be 
mentioned,  viz.,  fourth,  his  assumption  that  the  laboring 
class  and  the  capitalistic  class  may  be  sharply  distin- 
guished and  precisely  divided.  For  Marx  the  social 
campaigner  this  assumption  was  convenient  and  in  a 
large  degree  correct.  For  Marx  the  scientific  investi- 
gator it  was  the  most  fatal  mistake.  We  had  no  sooner 
formulated  the  primary  sociological  generalization  of 
the  universality  of  social  conflict  than  we  made  out  the 
equally  primary  parallel  generalization  of  the  universal- 
ity of  co-operation.  For  certain  immediate  purposes, 
human  beings  may  and  do  form  themselves  into  groups 
of  friends  for  better  or  worse,  to  fight  against  other 
groups  regarded  as  absolute  enemies.  In  doing  this  the 
other  processes  of  the  group  life  are  partially  arrested 
in  order  that  in  certain  particulars  the  antagonistic  in- 
terests of  the  respective  groups  may  measure  strength. 
These  differences  having  been  adjusted,  it  soon  appears 
that  the  groups  cannot  be  permanently  as  exclusive  and 
hostile  as  they  made  themselves  provisionally.  Ameri- 


114  AN   INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

cans  and  Spanish,  Boers  and  British,  Russians  and  Jap- 
anese, employers  and  employees,  presently  discover  that 
in  the  long  run  it  is  the  best  policy  for  co-operation  to 
control  conflict.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  our  last  ren- 
dering of  the  social  process  today  expresses  it  in  terms 
of  one  stage  farther  along  in  its  evolution  than  that 
which  most  impressed  Marx.  We  assert  the  universal 
fact  of  class  conflict  as  strongly  as  he  did.  We  assert 
the  universal  fact  of  co-operation  more  strongly  than  he 
did.  Then  we  find  the  center  of  the  conflict  which  is  the 
life  of  society,  not  in  perpetual  trial  of  strength  between 
permanently  defined  classes,  but  we  see  the  merging  of 
these  earlier  alignments  into  incessant  reassortment  of 
classes  in  perpetual  conflict  for  moral  control  of  the 
terms  of  co-operation.  Marx  was  right,  as  a  social  tac- 
tician, in  believing  that  the  class  consciousness  of  wage- 
earners  must  be  mobilized  for  a  life-and-death  struggle 
against  the  impersonal  force  of  capital.  As  a  philoso- 
pher, even  through  the  smoke  of  battle,  he  could  see 
victory  perching  on  a  prouder  banner  than  either  party 
carried  into  the  fray.  After  all,  however,  it  was  to  his 
view  only  a  bigger  labor-class  banner,  rather  than  the 
standard  of  a  more  splendid  humanity.  I  do  not  feel 
like  quarreling  with  Marx  over  this  limitation.  He 
fought  gallantly  for  neglected  phases  of  truth.  We  do 
ourselves  no  credit  in  blaming  him  for  not  seeing  the 
whole  of  the  truth.  We  shall  do  well  if  we  see  as  far 
into  the  truth  as  he  did,  and  if  while  avoiding  some  of 
his  errors  we  add  even  a  little  to  his  wisdom. 

"The  fifth  cardinal  point  in  Marx's  system  was,  so  to 
speak,  the  keel  of  his  proposed  ship  of  state,  viz.,  the 
socialisation  of  capital.  In  brief,  all  his  visions  of  re- 
organized society  centered  about  a  state  which  should  be 
the  owner  of  all  productive  wealth,  while  the  citizens 
should  be  the  consumers  each  of  his  own  share  of  the 
output  of  production. 

"From  the  standpoint  of  social  science  it  is  extremely 


SMALL'S  ESTIMATE  OF  MARX  115 

naive  to  suppose  that  the  form  in  which  any  construct- 
tive  principle  will  be  assimilated  in  a  national  economic 
system  can  be  foreseen  very  far  in  advance.  I  must 
confess  that  Marx's  ideal  of  economic  society  has  never 
appealed  to  me  as  plausible,  probable,  desirable,  or  pos- 
sible. In  essentials  Marx  was  nearer  to  a  correct  diag- 
nosis of  the  evils  of  our  present  property  system  than 
the  wisdom  of  this  world  has  yet  been  willing  to  admit, 
but  his  plan  for  correcting  the  evils  is  neither  the  only 
conceivable  alternative  nor  the  most  convincing  one. 
Indeed,  from  the  standpoint  of  social  science  any  plan 
at  all  for  correcting  the  evils  of  capitalism  is  premature 
until  the  world  has  probed  down  much  deeper  into  the 
evils  themselves.  Not  until  we  thoroughly  understand 
that  our  social  order  now  rests  on  the  basis  of  property, 
and  that  it  will  not  be  a  thoroughly  moral  order  until 
it  is  transferred  to  the  basis  of  function,  shall  we  be  in 
a  position  intelligently  to  reflect  on  social  reconstruc- 
tion. Therewithal  I  become  esoteric,  and  it  is  a  sign 
that  I  should  stop." 


CHAPTER   XII 

SOCIOLOGY   AND    THE    SOCIAL   SCIENCES 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  instructive  chapters 
in  the  history  of  sociology  is  the  controversy  which  nat- 
urally arose  as  to  the  relation  of  sociology  to  the  special 
group  of  social  sciences — economics,  politics,  jurispru- 
dence, etc.  In  the  study  of  sociology,  as  in  any  other 
study,  a  safe  rule  is  that  we  best  understand  what  a 
thing  is  by  learning  how  it  became  so.  The  student 
who  comes  to  this  aspect  of  the  science  of  society,  al- 
ready knowing  the  story  of  the  development  of  biology, 
finds  the  task  considerably  simplified  because  the  two 
developments  have  so  much  in  common  that  they  serve 
to  explain  and  illustrate,  each  other.  At  the  risk,  there- 
fore, of  a  seeming  discursion  from  our  proper  theme, 
we  shall  first  trace,  briefly,  the  rise  of  "biology"  as  a  sci- 
entific name.  This  will  have  the  additional  value  of 
introducing  the  reader,  if  not  already  acquainted,  to 
Professor  Thomas  Henry  Huxley.  Huxley's  "Collected 
Essays"  occupy  a  place  in  the  world  of  books  parallel  to 
the  place  of  the  "Kohinoor"  in  the  world's  collection  of 
precious  stones.  The  man  who  goes  to  the  grave  with- 
out having  read  them  has  missed  one  of  the  most  en- 
during pleasures  within  the  gift  of  modern  civilization. 

In  the  volume  entitled  "Science  and  Education'''  there 
is  a  chapter,  which  was  first  delivered  as  a  lecture,  en- 
titled "On  the  Study  of  Biology."  Here  Huxley  ex- 
plains how  the  term  biology  came  into  use  and  finally 
displaced  the  term  "natural  history"  which  had  previ- 
ously served. 

118 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE   SOCIAL  SCIENCES.  117 

Huxley  begins  by  quoting-  the  following  passage  from 
"The  Leviathan"  of  Thomas  Hobbes,  the  philosopher  of 
Malmesbury : 

"The  register  of  knowledge  of  fact  is  called  history. 
Whereof  there  be  two  sorts,  one  called  natural  history; 
which  is  the  history  of  such  facts  or  effects  of  nature 
as  have  no  dependence  on  man's  will;  such  as  are  the 
histories  of  metals,  plants,  animals,  regions,  and  the 
like.  The  other  is  civil  history;  which  is  the  history  of 
the  voluntary  actions  of  men  in  commonwealths." 

After  explaining  certain  changes  of  meaning  which 
the  term  "Natural  History"  underwent,  Huxley  proceeds 
to  give  a  piece  of  very  valuable  science  history: 

"But  as  science  made  the  marvellous  progress  which 
it  did  make  at  the  latter  end  of  the  last  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  present  century,  thinking  men  began  to  dis- 
cern that  under  this  title  of  "Natural  History"  there 
were  included  very  heterogeneous  constituents — that,  for 
example,  geology  and  mineralogy  were,  in  many  re- 
spects, widely  different  from  botany  and  zoology;  that 
a  man  might  obtain  an  extensive  knowledge  of  the  struc- 
ture and  functions  of  plants  and  animals  without  hav- 
ing need  to  enter  upon  the  study  of  geology  or. miner- 
alogy, and  vice  versa;  and,  further,  as  knowledge  ad- 
vanced, it  became  clearer  that  there  was  a  great  anal- 
ogy, a  very  close  alliance,  between  those  two  sciences, 
of  botany  and  zoology  which  deal  with  living  beings, 
while  they  are  much  more  widely  separated  from  all 
other  studies.  Therefore,  it  is  not  wonderful  that,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  in  two  different 
countries,  and  so  far  as  I  know,  without  any  intercom- 
munication, two  famous  men  clearly  conceived  the  no- 
tion of  uniting  the  sciences  which  deal  with  living  mat- 
ter into  one  whole,  and  of  dealing  with  them  as  one  dis- 
cipline. In  fact,  I  may  say  there  were  three  men  to 


118  AN   INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

whom  this  idea  occurred  contemporaneously,  although 
there  were  but  two  who  carried  it  into  effect,  and  only 
one  who  worked  it  out  completely.  The  persons  to 
whom  I  refer  were  the  eminent  physiologist  Bichat,  and 
the  great  naturalist  Lamarck  in  France;  and  a  distin- 
guished German,  Treviranus.  Bichat  assumed  the  ex- 
istence of  a  spcial  group  of  'physiological'  sciences. 
Lamarck,  in  a  work  published  in  1801,  for  the  first  time 
made  use  of  the  name  'Biologic/  from  the  two  Greek 
words  which  signify  a  discourse  upon  life  and  living 
things.  About  the  same  time  it  occurred  to  Treviranus, 
that  all  those  sciences  which  deal  with  living  matter  are 
essentially  and  fundamentally  one,  and  ought  to  be 
treated  as  a  whole;  and,  in  the  year  1802,  he  published 
the  first  volume  of  what  he  also  called  'Biologic.'  Tre- 
viranus's  great  merit  lies  in  this,  that  he  worked  out  his 
idea  and  wrote  the  very  remarkable  book  to  which  I 
refer.  It  consists  of  six  volumes,  and  occupied  its  au- 
thor for  twenty  years— from  1802  to  1822." 

We  shall  now  pass  to  the  consideration  of  the  rise  of 
sociology.  The  problem  as  to  what  position  sociology 
should  occupy  in  relation  to  the  already  established 
group  of  social  sciences  reached  an  acute  stage  when  it 
was  sought  to  introduce  sociology  into  the  universities 
and  give  it  a  chair  of  its  own.  Many  professors,  hold- 
ing chairs  in  the  social  sciences,  promptly  rebelled.  To 
them  the  new  comer  was  a  usurper  and  a  pretender. 
They  objected  that  the  new  professors  would  simply 
do  the  work  they  themselves  were  already  engaged  in, 
the  only  difference  being  that  it  would  be  done  under 
a  new  name.  Thus  the  discussion  generated  much  ri- 
valry. There  are  universities  we  could  name  where  this 
feeling  of  trespass  still  exists  between  the  professors  of 
economics  and  the  teachers  of  sociology.  The  claims  of 


SOCIOLOGY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   SCIENCES.  119 

the  sociologists  to  occupy  larger,  more  general,  and 
therefore  more  important  ground  has  done  nothing  to 
allay  the  feeling.  While  this  division  has  in  some  places 
amounted  to  a  mild  feud,  it  has  never  produced  petty 
and  disgraceful  wrangles  such  as  have  divided  the 
Christian  church  into  some  hundreds  of  narrow  sects. 
There  is  something  in  the  atmosphere  of  scientific  re- 
search which  raises  its  controversies  to  much  higher 
planes  than  are  possible  to  the  shallow  bigotry  of  the 
theological  world.  The  shameful  treatment  of  Lamarck 
by  Cuvier,  and  the  contemptible  attitude  of  Owen  to 
Huxley  and  Darwin,  are  the  only  exceptions  we  can  re- 
call in  the  history  of  science  for  a  hundred  years. 

"The  sociologists/'  says  Professor  Small,  "have 
broken  into  the  goodly  fellowship  of  the  social  scientists, 
and  have  thus  far  found  themselves  frankly  unwelcome 
guests."  Small  begins  the  discussion  of  the  right  of 
sociology  to  a  place  among  the  sciences  on  the  very 
first  page  of  his  "General  Sociology:" 

"Ever  since  Comte  proposed  the  name  'sociology,' 
and  parallel  with  all  subsequent  attempts  to  give  the  term 
a  definite  content,  one  mode  of  attack  upon  the  proposed 
science  has  been  denial  that  it  could  have  a  subject-mat- 
ter not  already  pre-empted  by  other  sciences.  This  sort 
of  attack  has  been  encouraged  by  the  seemingly  hope- 
less disagreement  among  sociologists  about  the  scien- 
tific task  that  they  were  trying  to  perform.  If  sociol- 
ogy has  had  anything  to  say  about  primitive  peoples, 
for  instance,  it  has  been  accused  of  violating  the  terri- 
tory of  anthropology  and  ethnology.  If  it  has  dealt 
with  evidence  recorded  by  civilized  races,  it  has  been 
charged  with  invading  the  province  of  the  historian.  If 


120  AN   INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

it  has  touched  upon  the  relations  of  social  classes  in 
modern  times,  the  political  scientist  or  the  economist  has 
warned  it  to  cease  infringing  upon  his  monoply.  Thus 
sociology  has  seemed  to  workers  in  other  sciences  either 
a  pseudo-science,  attempting  to  get  prestige  in  their  own 
fields  by  exploiting  quack  methods,  or  a  mere  collector 
of  the  waste  thrown  aside  by  the  more  important  sci- 
ences. Sociologists  themselves  have  unintentionally 
done  not  a  little  to  confirm  this  impression.  As  has  been 
hinted  above,  their  failure  to  agree  upon  a  definition  of 
their  science,  or  upon  precise  description  of  their  task, 
has  seemed  to  afford  ocular  proof  that  their  alleged  sci- 
ence was  merely  a  name  with  no  corresponding  content." 

This  dilemma  has  found  its  solution  in  the  steady  pro- 
gress of  sociology  until  it  has  achieved  a  secure  .place 
in  the  scientific  hierarchy.  For  the  student,  it  is  not 
now  a  question  of,  shall  sociology  be  admitted  as  a  sci- 
ence? It  is  rather  a  question  of  understanding  why  it 
has  been  admitted  and  what  are  its  functions.  The  so- 
ciologists, in  dealing  with  this  question,  invariably  turn 
to  the  example  of  biology  for  illustration  and  justifica- 
tion of  their  position.  It  is  pointed  out  that,  as  the  vari- 
ous sciences  and  sub-sciences  dealing  with  separate  de- 
partments of  organic  life  are  united  under  the  term  biol- 
ogy, it  is  proper  and  desirable  that  the  various  sciences 
and  sub-sciences  dealing  with  the  different  forms  of 
human  activity  should  be  united  in  sociology.  It  is  also 
shown  that  biology  is  not  merely  a  collection  of  sciences, 
but  is  a  science  in  itself,  separate  and  distinct  from  its 
subdivisions,  having  for  its  subject-matter  the  great 
general  laws  which  unite  all  organic  phenomena  and 
which,  in  the  nature  of  things,  could  not  be  properly 
treated  by  any  science  of  a  sectional  character.  Human 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  SCIENCES.  121 

society  also  is  held  to  be  a  great  whole,  having  general 
laws  demanding  the  creation  of  a  general  science,  which 
should  have  for  its  subject  not  any  division  of  human 
activity,  nor  yet  merely  a  collection  of  such  divisions, 
but  the  study  of  the  social  process  as  a  whole.  The  best 
development  of  this  parallel  is  probably  that  of  Pro- 
fessor Giddings  where  the  professor  is  dealing  with 
"The  Province  of  Sociology"  in  his  book  entitled  "The 
Principles  of  Sociology." 

"General  biology  affords  the  most  helpful  analogy. 
The  word  'biology,'  first  used  by  Lamarck,  was  adopted 
by  Comte,  who  proposed  'sociology,'  and  he  used  both 
the  one  and  the  other  for  like  reasons.  He  believed  in 
a  science  of  life  as  a  whole,  as  in  a  science  of  society 
as  a  whole.  But  'biology,'  like  'sociology,'  had  no 
vogue  until  Mr.  Spencer  took  it  up.  All  but  the  young- 
est of  our  scientific  men  can  remember  when  it  began 
to  creep  into  college  and  university  catalogues.  Neither 
the  word  nor  the  idea  obtained  recognition  without 
a  struggle.  What  was  there  in  general  biology,  the  ob- 
jectors said,  that  was  not  already  taught  as  'natural  his- 
tory,' or  as  botany  and  zoology  or  as  anatomy  and 
physiology?  The  reply  of  the  biologists  was,  that  the 
essential  phenomena  of  life — cellular  structure,  nutri- 
tions and  waste,  growth  and  reproduction,  adaptation 
to  environment,  and  natural  selection — are  common  to 
animal  and  plant;  that  structure  and  function  are  unin- 
telligible apart  from  each  other;  and  that  the  student 
will  therefore  get  a  false  or  distorted  view  of  his  sub- 
ject unless  he  is  made  to  see  the  phenomena  of  life  in 
their  unity  as  well  as  in  their  special  phases.  He  should 
study  botany  and  zoology,  of  course,  but  he  should  first 
be  grounded  in  general  biology,  the  science  of  the  essen- 
tial and  universal  phenomena  of  life  under  all  its 
varied  forms.  This  view  of  the  matter  won  its 


122  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

way  by  mere  inherent  truthfulness  and  good  sense. 
General  biology  became  a  working  laboratory  science, 
conceived  and  pursued  as  a  ground  work  of  more  spe- 
cial biological  sciences. 

The  question  about  sociology  is  precisely  similar  and 
must  be  answered  in  the  same  way.  What  aspect  of 
social  life  is  not  already  brought  under  scrutiny  in  one 
or  more  of  the  economic,  political,  or  historical  courses 
already  provided  in  well  organized  universities?  Per- 
haps none;  yet,  as  the  sociologist  sees  it,  this  is  not  the 
real  question.  Is  society  after  all  a  whole?  Is  s'ocial 
activity  continuous?  Are  there  certain  essential  facts, 
causes,  or  laws  in  society,  which  are  common  to  com- 
munities of  all  kinds,  at  all  times,  and  which  underlie 
and  explain  the  more  special  social  forms?  If  we  must 
answer  'yes/  then  -hese  universal  truths  should  be 
taught.  To  teach  ethnology,  the  philosphy  of  history, 
political  economy,  and  the  theory  of  the  state,  to  men 
who  have  not  learned  these  first  principles  of  sociology, 
is  like  teaching  astronomy  or  thermodynamics  to  men 
who  have  not  learned  the  Newtonian  laws  of  motion. 
An  analysis,  then,  of  the  general  characteristics  of  social 
phenomena  and  a  formulation  of  the  general  laws  of 
social  evolution^  should  be  made  the  basis  of  special 
study  in  all  departments  of  social  science." 

Any  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  social  scientists  against 
the  admission  of  sociology  to  a  place  among  them  was 
destined  to  failure  from  the  beginning.  This  failure 
was  assured  by  the  epoch-making  labors  of  Comte  and 
Spencer.  The  place  of  sociology  was  really  established 
and  made  secure  before  this  secondary  dispute  arose. 
When  Comte  and  Spencer  cast  their  comprehensive 
minds  over  the  entire  field  of  human  knowledge,  they 
saw  that  some  great  general  science  must  of  necessity 
deal  with  the  origin  and  structure  of  human  society,  as 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  SCIENCES.  123 

other  great  general  sciences  must  deal  with  the  origin 
and  processes  of  the  universe  and  the  phenomena  of 
living  matter.  Thus,  before  sociology  was  born,  the 
necessity  for  its  existence  was  realized  and  thoroughly 
understood.  Professor  Small's  classification  of  the 
great  divisions  of  human  knowledge  makes  this  per- 
fectly clear: 

"All  the  concrete  and  special  knowledge  that  goes  to 
make  up  our  present  sciences  has  been  unified  at  last 
around  some  central  conception  of  subject-matter  and 
appropriate  method.  We  may  express  the  fact  for  our 
present  purposes  in  the  formula:  Physics  is  the  science 
of  matter  in  its  molar  and  molecular  processes;  chem- 
istry is  the  science  of  matter  in  its  atomic  processes; 
biology  is  the  science  of  matter  in  its  organic  processes. 
In  each  case  the  comprehensive  science  has  the  task  of 
organizing  details  which  may  already  have  been  studied 
separately  by  several  varities  of  scholars. 

"The  same  logical  methods  which  have  arrived  at 
these  generalizations  make  irresistably  toward  the  con- 
viction that  coherence  and  unity  of  knowledge  about  hu- 
man experience  demand  a  science  of  men  in  their  asso- 
ciational  processes." 

The  theory  of  evolution  has  done  more  than  any  other 
theory,  not  only  to  point  out  the  place  which  sociology 
should  occupy,  but  to  establish  it  impregnably  in  that 
position.  If  evolutionary  science  had  not  appeared  it 
is  difficult  to  see  how  sociology  could  ever  have  been 
born.  It  was  undoubtedly  the  realization  of  the  neces- 
sity of  applying  to  social  phenomena  the  same  scientific 
methods  and  theories  that  had  produced  such  brilliant 
results  in  other  fields  that  led  to  its  creation.  This  is 
well  and  forcefully  expressed  by  Professor  Giddings: 

"Since  Comte,  sociology  has  been  developed  mainly 


124  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

by  men  who  have  felt  the  full  force  of  an  impulse  that 
has  revolutionized  scientific  thinking  for  all  time  to 
come.  The  evolutionist  explanation  of  the  natural 
world  has  made  its  way  into  every  department  of  knowl- 
edge. The  law  of  natural  selection  and  the  conception 
of  life  as  a  process  of  adjustment  of  the  organism  to  its 
environment  ;have  become  the  core  of  the  biology  and  the 
psychology  of.  today.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  evolu- 
tionary philosophy  should  be  extended  to  embrace  the 
social  phenomena  of  human  life.  The  science  that  had 
traced  life  from  protoplasm  to  man  could  not  stop  with 
explanations  of  his  internal  constitution.  It  must  take 
cognizance  of  his  manifold  external  relations,  of  the 
ethnical  groups,  of  the  natural  societies  of  men,  and  of 
all  the  phenomena  that  they  exhibit,  and  inquire  whether 
these  things  also  are  not  products  of  universal  evolu- 
tion. Therefore,  we  find  not  only  in  the  earlier  writ- 
ings of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  but  also  in  those  of  Dar- 
win and  Professor  Haeckel,  suggestions  of  an  evolu- 
tionist account  of  social  relations.  These  'hints  were 
not  of  themselves  a  sociology.  For  this,  other  factors, 
derived  directly  by  induction  from  social  phenomena, 
were  needed.  But  such  hints  sufficed  to  show  where 
some  of  the  ground  lines  of  the  new  science  must  lie; 
to  reveal  some  of  its  fundamental  conceptions ;  and  to 
demonstrate  that  the  sociologist  must  be  not  only  his- 
torian, economist,  and  statistician,  but  biologist  and 
psychologist  as  well.  On  evolutional  lines  then,  and 
through  the  labors  of  evolutionist  thinkers,  modern  so- 
ciology has  taken  shape.  It  is  an  intepretation  of  hu- 
man society  in  terms  of  natural  causation.  It  refuses 
to  look  upon  humanity  as  outside  the  cosmic  process, 
and  as  a  law  unto  itself.  Sociology  is  an  attempt  to  ac- 
count for  the  origin,  growth,  structure,  and  activities 
of  society  by  the  operation  of  physical,  vital,  and  psy- 
chical causes,  working  together  in  a  process  of  evolu- 
tion." 


CHAPTER    XIII 

SOCIOLOGY   AND  THE   SCIENTIFIC   METHOD 

It  is  related  that  a  farmer  called  at  a  certain  univer- 
sity and  asked  a  group  of  students  for  a  professor  by 
name.  'One  of  the  students,  volunteering  the  informa- 
tion, addressed  the  farmer  thus: 

"Crucify  the  quadrangle,  ascend  the  scalae,  execute  a 
dextral  vert,  and  you  will  find  the  professor  perambulat- 
ing in  his  laboratory,  or  sitting  near  the  fenestrum." 

"What,"  gasped  the  open-mouthed  farmer,  "is  the 
fenestrum?" 

"The  fenestrum,"  replied  his  willing  informant,  "is 
the  aperture  through  which  the  dome  of  the  building 
is  illuminated." 

This  story  may  or  may  not  be  true,  but  it  illustrates 
one  of  the  barriers  between  the  masses  of  mankind  and 
the  great  body  of  scientific  truth  wherein  lies  their  only 
hope  of  social  salvation. 

A  friend  of  mine,  recently  returned  from  Paris,  in- 
forms me  that  one  of  his  greatest  surprises  came  when 
he  attended  the  lecture  halls  of  the  universities  and 
heard  the  foremost  professors  and  scholars  of  Europe 
deliver  great  lectures  upon  great  questions,  open  and  free 
to  the  public,  to  audiences  which  in  many  cases,  could 
have  been  easily  accommodated  in  a  small  class-room. 
One  of  the  reasons  for  this  condition  is  that  scientific 
men  and  philosophers  tend  to  develop  a  world  of  their 
own,  in  which  they  speak  a  language  which  they  alone 
understand.  The  mass  of  scientific  books  are  written 

125 


126  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

in  that  language,  and  to  the  average  man,  be  he  a  wage- 
worker  or  engaged  in  business  pursuits,  they  convey 
little  or  no  meaning.  Such  a  man  will  accidentally  pick 
up  a  scientific  book  and  discovering  by  a  glance  at  its 
pages  that  such  is  its  character,  he  lays  it  down,  imme- 
diately realizing  that  it  was  never  intended  for  his  per- 
usal. 

We  are  not  overlooking  the  difficulty  of  expressing 
the  great  mass  of  scientific  ideas  and  theories  in  com- 
mon language ;  we  are  fully  aware  that  writers  of  scien- 
tific books  would  be  well  able  to  present  an  excellent 
case  in  behalf  of  their  usage  of  scientific  terms,  but  the 
resulting  inability  of  the  general  public  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  modern  scientific  knowledge  is  none  the 
less  deplorable. 

There  is  every  ground  for  believing  that  if  the  scien- 
tific knowledge  already  achieved  could  be  made  the  com- 
mon property  of  the  mass  of  men,  it  would  amply  suffice 
for  the  solution  of  the  great  majority  of  our  social  prob- 
lems and  launch  the  human  race  in  a  society  which 
would  in  some  measure  correspond  to  the  millenial 
dreams  of  poets  and  prophets,  who  have  had  visions  of 
the  golden  age.  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

Scientific  knowledge,  however,  is  of  comparatively 
small  value  until  it  is  put  into  operation,  and  our  socie- 
ties are  so  constituted  that  this  cannot  be  done  except 
in  response  to  a  general  and  intelligent  demand.  The 
first  requisite  to  this  achievement  is  that  scientific  ideas 
shall  find  a  lodgement  in  the  general  mind.  The  mass 
of  men  cannot  move  or  be  moved  by  ideas  that  are  the 
exclusive  property  of  a  select  few  any  more  than  one 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  127 

boiler  could  generate  steam  by  a  fire  located  under  an- 
other boiler.  We  therefore  believe  that  Lester  F.  Ward 
has  given  expression  to  the  greatest  need  of  our  time 
in  making  the  socialization  of  knowledge  the  supreme 
goal  of  his  system  of  sociology. 

On  its  practical  side  this  program  is  met  by  a  very 
serious  dilemma.  The  moving  force  for  social  change 
must  be  looked  for  among  those  members  of  society  who 
are  the  chief  sufferers  from  the  injustices  and  anomalies 
of  our  social  system.  These  are  undoubtedly  the  great 
mass  of  men  and  women  who  work  for  wages,  and  it  is 
precisely  these  men  and  women  to  whom  scientific  knowl- 
edge is  the  least  accessible.  The  only  chance  for  even 
the  next  generation  lies  in  the  public  schools.  But,  un- 
fortunately, the  class  in  society,  which  reaps  where  it 
has  not  sown,  and  is  enriched  by  the  labor  of  others, 
dominates  our  political  system  through  a  multitude  of 
agencies  and,  among  other  things,  dictates  the  policy 
of  our  school  system.  The  result  is  that  those  particular 
scientific  ideas  and  tendencies  which  would  disturb  their 
status  to  the  advantage  of  the  wage  working  class  are 
rigorously  suppressed,  so  that,  on  the  one  hand,  there  is 
practically  no  opportunity  for  the  working  class  to  be- 
come possessed  of  knowledge  it  most  imperatively  needs, 
and  on  the  other  the  public  school  system  cannot  be 
transformed  so  as  to  make  it  effectively  communicate 
the  desired  knowledge  to  its  pupils  until  there  is  a  suf- 
ficient demand  on  the  part  of  the  working  class  itself 
to  carry  the  threat  of  a  violent  and  successful  revolution 
as  the  only  alternative.  And  this  demand  cannot  arise 
until  the  workers  themselves  realize  the  nature  and  im- 


128  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

portance  of  such  knowledge,  and,  as  we  have  already 
remarked,  their  only  chance  of  acquiring  this  is  through 
the  medium  of  their  children  in  the  public  schools. 
Thus  we  find  ourselves  in  a  vicious  circle,  from  which 
there  is  no  apparent  escape. 

The  situation,  however,  is  not  so  hopeless  as  this 
would  indicate;  there  are  a  variety  of  forces  in  opera- 
tion which  tend  to  break  the  circle  at  a  number  of 
points.  In  this  place  we  shall  deal  with  only  one  of 
these.  A  number  of  scientific  men,  and  their  number 
is  steadily  increasing,  have  realized  the  desirability  of 
reaching  the  general  public  with  their  teachings.  Not 
only  this,  but  there  has  arisen  another  body  of  men,  and 
these  also  are  increasing,  who,  while  they  are  not  scien- 
tific men  themselves  in  the  precise  meaning  of  that  term, 
have  taken  upon  themselves  the  task  of  interpreters. 
These  men  are  generally  referred  to  as  popularizers  of 
science.  In  certain  dignified  quarters,  occupied  by  men 
who,  being  extremely  comfortable  themselves,  have  no 
disposition  to  descend  into  the  dust  and  struggle  of  the 
masses,  it  is  fashionable  to  decry  the  popularizers  of 
science  as  the  "vulgarizers"  of  science. 

Wherever  scientific  men  have  labored  to  produce  sci- 
entific books  within  the  intellectual  grasp  of  the  com- 
mon people,  the  results  have  more  than  justified  their 
efforts.  One  of  the  most  notable  cases  of  this  kind  is 
to  be  found  in  the  "Lectures  for  Working  Men,"  deliv- 
ered in  England  by  Professor  Huxley  to  immense  audi- 
ences of  eager  working  men,  and  many  workers  who 
never  had  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  Huxky's  voice 
have  nevertheless  found  access  to  the  world  of  scientific 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  129 

knowledge  through  the  reading  of  those  lectures  in  Hux- 
ley's "Collected  Essays."  The  course  of  lectures  on  evo- 
lution, specially  delivered  for  working  men,  have  prob- 
ably done  more  for  the  advancement  of  evolutionary 
ideas  in  the  English-speaking  world  than  any  other  sin- 
gle publication,  with  the  exception,  of  course,  of  Dar- 
win's 'Origin  of  Species." 

No  man  realized  more  clearly  the  tremendous  value 
of  scientific  knowledge  for  the  oppressed  working  class 
than  Karl  Marx.  Wilhelm  Liebknecht,  in  "Memoirs  of 
Marx,"  tells  us  that  during  the  period  of  their  mutual 
exile  in  London,  they  religiously  attended  Huxley's 
"Lectures  to  Working  Men."  If  the  mass  of  scientific 
men  had  followed  Huxley's  method  and  possessed  Hux- 
ley's ability  to  make  it  effective,  the  public  school  sys- 
tem would  by  this  time  be  a  vastly  different  institution, 
and  there  is  no  means  of  measuring  the  effect  it  would 
have  had  on  the  -entire  social  process. 

One  of  the  most  lamentable  results  of  the  almost  im- 
passable barrier  between  the  sciences  and  the  people  is 
that  to  the  mass  of  men  the  methods  of  science  are 
enshrouded  in  mystery.  The  clearing  away  of  this  de- 
lusion is  the  first  step  in  the  direction  of  better  things, 
and  no  man  has  exposed  it  more  completely  than  Hux- 
ley. The  passage  in  which  he  does  this  deserves  to  be 
read  with  the  closest  attention.  It  is  a  demonstration  of 
how  difficult  things  can  be  rendered  extremely  simple: 

"The  method  of  scientific  investigation  is  nothing  but 
the  expression  of  the  necessary  mode  of  working  of  the 
human  mind.  It  is  simply  the  mode  at  which  all  phe- 
nomena are  reasoned  about,  rendered  precise  and  exact. 
There  is  no  more  difference,  but  there  is  just  the  same 


130  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

kind  of  difference,  between  the  mental  operations  of  a 
man  of  science  and  those  of  an  ordinary  person,  as  there 
is  between  the  operations  and  methods  of  a  baker  or 
of  a  butcher  weighing  out  his  goods  in  common  scales, 
and  the  operations  of  a  chemist  in  performing  a  diffi- 
cult and  complex  analysis  by  means  of  his  balance  and 
finely-graduated  weights.  It  is  not  that  the  action  of 
the  scales  in  the  one  case,  and  the  balance  in  the  other, 
differ  in  the  principles  of  their  construction  or  manner 
of  working;  but  the  beam  of  one  is  set  on  an  infinitely 
finer  axis  than  the  other,  and  of  course  turns  by  the  ad- 
dition of  a  much  smaller  weight. 

"You  will  understand  this  better,  perhaps,  if  I  give 
you  some  familiar  example.  You  have  all  heard  it  re- 
peated, I  dare  say,  that  men  of  science  work  by  means 
of  Induction  and  Deduction,  and  that  by  the  help  of 
these  operations,  they,  in  a  sort  of  sense,  wring  from 
Nature  certain  other  things,  which  are  called  Natural 
Laws,  and  Causes,  and  that  out  of  these,  by  some  cun- 
ning skill  of  their  own,  they  build  up  Hypothesis  and 
Theories.  And  it  is  imagined  by  many,  that  the  opera- 
tions of  the  common  mind  can  be  by  no  means  com- 
pared with  these  processes,  and  that  they  have  to  be  ac- 
quired by  a  sort  of  special  apprenticeship  to  the  craft. 
To  hear  all  these  large  words,  you  would  think  that  the 
mind  of  a  man  of  science  must  be  constituted  differently 
from  that  of  his  fellow  men;  but  if  you  will  not  be 
frightened  by  terms,  you  will  discover  that  you  are  quite 
wrong,  and  that  all  these  terrible  apparatus  are  being 
used  by  yourselves  every  day  and  every  hour  of  your 
lives. 

"There  is  a  well-known  incident  in  one  of  Moliere's 
plays,  where  the  author  makes  the  hero  express  un- 
bounded delight  on  being  told  that  he  had  been  talking 
prose  during  the  whole  of  his  life.  In  the  same  way, 
I  trust,  that  you  will  take  comfort,  and  be  delighted 
with  yourselves  on  the  discovery  that  you  have  been 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  131 

acting-  on  the  principles  of  inductive  and  deductive  phil- 
osophy during  the  same  period.  Probably  there  is  not 
one  here  who  has  not  in  the  course  of  the  day  had  occa- 
sion to  set  in  motion  a  complex  train  of  reasoning  of 
the  very  same  kind,  though  differing  of  course  in  de- 
gree, as  that  which  a  scientific  man  goes  through  in 
tracing  the  causes  of  natural  phenomena. 

"A  trivial  circumstance  will  serve  to  exemplify  this. 
Suppose  you  go  into  a  fruiterer's  shop,  wanting  an 
apple, — you  take  up  one,  and,  on  biting  it,  you  find  it  is 
sour;  you  look  at  it  and  see  that  it  is  hard  and  green. 
You  take  up  another,  and  that  too  is  hard,  green,  and 
sour.  The  shopman  offers  you  a  third;  but,  before  bit- 
ing it,  you  examine  it,  and  find  that  it  is  hard  and  green, 
and  you  immediately  say  that  you  will  not,  have  it,  as 
it  must  be  sour,  like  those  that  you  have  already  tried. 

"Nothing  can  be  more  simple  than  that,  you  think; 
but  if  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  analyze  and  trace 
out  into  its  logical  elements  what  has  been  done  by  the 
mind,  you  will  be  greatly  surprised.  In  the  first  place, 
you  have  performed  the  operation  of  Induction.  You 
found  that,  in  two  experiences,  hardness  and  greenness 
in  apples  go  together  with  sourness.  It  was  so  in  the 
first  case,  and  it  was  confirmed  by  the  second.  True, 
it  is  a  very  small  basis,  but  still  it  is  enough  to  make  an 
induction  from ;  you  generalize  the  facts,  and  you  expect 
to  find  sourness  in  apples  where  you  get  hardness  and 
greenness.  You  found  upon  that  a  general  law,  that  all 
hard  and  green  apples  are  sour;  and  that,  so  far  as  it 
goes,  is  a  perfect  induction.  Well,  having  got  your  nat- 
ural law  in  this  way,  when  you  are  offered  another  apple 
which  you  find  is  hard  and  green,  you  say,  'All  hard  and 
green  apples  are  sour;  this  apple  is  hard  and  green, 
therefore  this  apple  is  sour.'  That  train  of  reasoning  is 
what  logicians  call  a  syllogism,  and  has  all  its  various 
parts  and  terms, — its  major  premiss,  its  minor  premiss, 
and  its  conclusion.  And,  by  the  help  of  further  reason- 


132  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ing,  which,  if  drawn  out,  would  have  to  bz  exhibited 
in  two  or  three  other  syllogisms,  you  arrive  at  your  final 
determination.  'I  will  not  have  that  apple.'  So  that, 
you  see,  you  have,  in  the  first  place,  established  a  law 
by  Induction,  and  upon  that  you  have  founded  a  De- 
duction, and  reasoned  out  the  special  conclusion  of  the 
particular  case.  Well  now,  suppose,  having  got  your 
law,  that  at  some  time  afterwards,  you  are  discussing 
the  qualities  of  apples  with  a  friend:  you  will  say  to 
him,  'It  is  a  very  curious  thing, — but  I  find  that  all  hard 
and  green  apples  are  sour!'  Your  friend  says  to  you, 
'But  how  do  you  know  that?'  You  at  once  reply,  'Oh, 
because  I  have  tried  it  over  and  over  again,  and  have 
always  found  them  to  be  so.'  Well,  if  we  were  talking 
science  instead  of  common  sense,  we  should  call  that  an 
Experimental  Verification.  And,  if  still  opposed,  you 
go  further,  and  say,  'I  have  heard  from  the  people  in 
Somersetshire  and  Devonshire,  where  large  number  of 
apples  are  grown,  that  they  have  observed  the  same 
thing.  It  is  also  found  to  be  the  case  in  Normandy,  and 
in  North  America.  In  short,  I  find  it  to  be  the  universal 
experience  of  mankind  wherever  attention  has  been  di- 
rected to  the  subject.'  Whereupon,  your  friend,  unless 
he  is  a  very  unreasonable  man,  agrees  with  you,  and  is 
convinced  that  you  are  quite  right  in  the  conclusion  you 
have  drawn.  He  believes,  although  perhaps  he  does  not 
know  he  believes  it,  that  the  more  extensive  Verifica- 
tions are, — that  the  more  frequently  experiments  have 
been  made,  and  results  of  the  same  kind  arrived  at, — 
that  the  more  varied  the  conditions  under  which  the 
same  results  have  been  attained,  the  more  certain  is  the 
ultimate  conclusion,  and  he  disputes  the  question  no 
further.  He  sees  that  the  experiment  has  been  tried 
under  all  sorts  of  conditions,  as  to  time,  place,  and  peo- 
ple, with  the  same  result;  and  he  says  with  you,  there- 
fore, that  the  law  you  have  laid  down  must  be  a  good 
one,  and  he  must  believe  it. 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  133 

"In  science  we  do  the  same  thing; — the  philosopher 
exercises  precisely  the  same  faculties,  though  in  a  much 
more  delicate  manner.  In  scientific  inquiry  it  becomes 
a  matter  of  duty  to  expose  a  supposed  law  to  every  pos- 
sible kind  of  verification,  and  to  take  care,  moreover, 
that  this  is  done  intentionally,  and  not  left  to  a  mere  ac- 
cident, as  in  the  case  of  the  apples.  And  in  science,  as 
in  common  life,  our  confidence  in  a  law  is  in  exact  pro- 
portion to  the  absence  of  variation  in  the  result  of  our 
experimental  verifications.  For  instance,  if  you  let  go 
your  grasp  of  an  article  you  may  have  in  your  hand,  it 
will  immediately  fall  to  the  ground.  That  is  a  very  com- 
mon verification  of  one  of  the  best  established  laws  of 
nature — that  of  gravitation.  The  method  by  which  men 
of  science  establish  the  existence  of  that  law  is  exactly 
the  same  as  that  by  which  we  have  established  the  triv- 
ial proposition  about  the  sourness  of  hard  and  green  ap- 
ples' But  we  believe  it  in  such  an  extensive,  thorough, 
and  unhesitating  manner  because  the  universal  experi- 
ence of  mankind  verifies  it,  and  we  can  verify  it  our- 
selves at  any  time;  and  that  is  the  strongest  possible 
foundation  on  which  any  natural  law  can  rest.  So  much 
by  way  of  proof  that  the  method  of  establishing  laws 
in  science  is  exactly  the  same  as  that  pursued  in  com- 
mon life." 

One  of  the  most  important  things  about  the  scientific 
method  is  that  it  demands  constant  contact  with  real 
things  as  the  only  process  by  which  truth  can  be  ob- 
tained. The  nature  of  truth  itself  is  another  of  the 
subjects  which  has  always  been  wrapped  in  mystery  and 
is,  indeed,  supposed  to  be  beyond  the  comprehension  of 
even  the  philosophers  themselves.  The  truth  about 
truth,  however,  is  comparatively  simple.  We  cannot 
speak  about  things  themselves  as  being  true  or  false. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  true  tree  or  a  false  tree,  or 


134  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

a  true  river  or  a  false  river.  Truth  does  not  apply  to 
the  things  themselves,  but  relates  only  to  our  ideas  of 
things.  We  may  have  a  true  idea  about  trees  and  rivers 
or  we  may  have  a  false  idea  about  them;  or  we  may 
have  true  or  false  ideas  about  a  certain  tree  or 
a  certain  river.  For  example,  our  idea  of  a  river 
may  be  that  it  is  shallow;  the  question  as  to 
whether  this  idea  is  true  or  false  depends  upon 
whether  the  river  is  shallow  or  deep.  If  the  river 
is  shallow  our  idea  is  true,  and  we  are  the  pos- 
sessors of  the  truth  upon  that  question;  if  the  river 
is  deep,  we  are  the  victims  of  error.  Truth  in  this 
case,  and  in  every  other  case,  depends  upon  there  being 
a  correspondence  between  the  thought  and  the  thing;  if 
the  thought  and  the  thing  are  identical,  we  'have  the 
truth.  This  is  what  George  H.  Lewes  meant  by  saying 
"Truth  is  identity."  Herbert  Spencer  expressed  it  more 
clearly  and  simply  in  his  "Principles  of  Psychology," 
"Truth  is  the  actual  correspondence  of  the  subjective 
and  objective  relations,"  which  being  translated  into 
common  language  would  read,  Truth  is  the  actual  cor- 
respondence between  thoughts  and  things. 

The  reason  sociology  is  even  yet  in  its  infancy  is  that 
we  have  only  recently  applied  the  scientific  method  to 
social  phenomena.  Yet,  although  this  application  is  a 
thing  of  yesterday,  the  results  already  obtained  are  ex- 
tremely gratifying  and  big  with  hope  and  promise  for 
the  future.  We  have  every  reason  to  expect  that  the 
tremendous  revolution  wrought  by  the  scientific  method 
in  our  thought  about  the  inorganic  and  the  organic 
world  will  also  be  accomplished  in  our  thinking  about 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  135 

• 

society.     Social  conservatism  is  already  discredited  an.! 
social  radicalism  is  on  the  threshold  of  victory. 

There  are  two  fields  of  research  to  which  we  may 
look  for  these  developments;  one  is  the  science  of  so- 
ciology and  the  other  is,  what  we  now  see  to  be  one  of 
its  sub-sciences,  political  economy.  Political  economy  is 
much  the  older  science  and,  on  this  ground,  we  might 
be  disposed  to  expect  the  greater  achievement  at  its 
hands.  This,  however,  is  by  no  means  the  case.  For 
some  reason  or  reasons,  political  economy  is  conserva- 
tive and  stagnant,  while  sociology  has  already  reached 
the  point  where  it  is  radical  and  progressive.  After 
long  deliberation  upon  this  enigma,  I  have  myself  con- 
cluded that  the  reason  for  this  difference  is  mainly  as 
follows:  Sociology  is  a  much  wider  science  than  politi- 
cal economy;  it  requires  for  its  understanding  some  con- 
siderable knowledge  of  the  sciences  in  which  the  scien- 
tific method  is  in  constant  use.  Herbert  Spencer  treat- 
ing of  society  as  an  organism,  comparing  it  to  a  biologi- 
cal organism,  has  driven  the  sociologists,  who  must 
needs  of  course  study  Spencer's  "Sociology,"  to  form  a 
close  acquaintance  with  biological  science.  This  is  only 
one  particular  instance  of  the  general  truth  that  sociol- 
ogy, searching  for  its  foundation  and  its  correlations, 
reaches  forth  into  a  number  of  scientific  fields  where  the 
theological,  metaphysical,  and  conventional  methods 
generally,  have  long  been  abandoned.  This  has  given 
the  sociologists  a  training  which  makes  them  conscious 
of  the  indispensability  of  the  scientific  method  with  its 
constant  verification  of  ideas  by  direct  contact  with  the 
world  of  reality.  The  economists,  on  the  other  hand, 


136  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

are  isolated  in  the  study  of  the  phenomena  of  wealth 
production  and  distribution,  and  have  no  vital  connection 
with  biology  or  physics.  Especially  on  their  philosophi- 
cal side,  have  they  failed  to  receive  the  scientific  impress 
which  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  their  brothers  in  the  larger 
science.  If  one  wishes  to  realize  how  hopelessly  sterile 
political  economy  has  become,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
pick  up  any  standard  work  on  the  subject  and  observe 
the  maze  of  fantastic,  metaphysical,  and  incoherent  no- 
tions with  which  it  is  filled.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
is  nothing  in  literature,  scientific  or  otherwise,  superior 
in  profundity  or  clarity  to  the  sociological  works  of 
Lester  F.  Ward,  and  this  is  true  of  other  sociologists  in 
a  less  degree. 

The  idea  of  progress  is  so  thoroughly  vindicated  by 
the  evolutionary  philosophy,  which  is  now  everywhere 
triumphant,  that  the  test  of  a  sociologist's  work  may  bs 
found  in  his  progressive  or  conservative  attitude  and 
tendencies.  The  sociologist  who  is  reactionary  on  social 
questions  must  be  judged  by  severer  standards  than  those 
applied  to  the  social  ideas  of  men  whose  life  labor  lies 
in  other  fields.  Herbert  Spencer,  for  example,  was  prob- 
ably the  most  utterly  reactionary  thinker  of  the  19th  cen- 
tury on  sociological  questions,  and  if  Herbert  Spencer 
had  been  a  sociologist  only,  or  a  sociologist  chiefly,  we 
should  be  entitled  to  judge  him  and  determine  his  place 
in  history  by  these  backward  social  opinions.  But  Her- 
bert Spencer  was,  first  of  all,  an  evolutionary  philoso- 
pher, and  in  this  field  he  was  thoroughly  radical  and 
progressive,  and  history  will  judge  him,  not  by  his  Man- 
chester school  politics,  but  by  the  great  part  he  played  in 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  137 

the  dislodgement  of  theological  superstitions  about  the 
history  and  nature  of  the  universe. 

Professor  Huxley  wrote  essays  on  political  and  eco- 
nomic questions,  whose  value  was  about  equal  to  the 
paper  they  were  written  upon,  and  had  Professor  Hux- 
ley been  a  sociologist,  he  would  have  outlived  his  fame. 
But  Huxley  was  a  biologist  and  must  be  judged,  not 
by  his  idea  that  capital  is  the  mother  of  labor,  but  by 
his  labors  in  organic  science.  Alfred  Russell  Wallace 
was  in  one  respect  at  least  the  equal  of  Darwin.  He 
discovered  independently  of  Darwin  the  great  theory  of 
natural  selection,  and,  although  Wallace  allowed  him- 
self to  be  deceived  by  charlatan  mediums  of  the  type  of 
Eusapia  Paladino  and  gave  solemn  and  public  credit  and 
sanction  to  frauds  which  would  have  been  detected  by 
an  average  newsboy,  his  position  in  the  scientific  world 
is  secure  because  of  the  immense  value  of  his  labors  in 
the  field  then  known  as  "natural  history."  The  social 
conservatism  of  a  biologist  or  a  physicist,  is  one  thing; 
the  social  conservatism  of  a  sociologist  is  another. 

The  difference  is  fully  realized  by  the  authorities  of 
most  of  the  universities.  A  friend  of  mine,  who  is  a 
professor  of  sociology  in  one  of  the  foremost  universi- 
ties of  America,  told  me  that  in  his  university  a  social- 
ist society  had  been  established,  and  that  he  himself  did 
not  dare  to  join  it,  much  as  he  desired  to  do  so.  The 
reason  given  was  that  the  authorities  did  not  mind  pro- 
fessors of  biology  or  chemistry,  or  teachers  of  civil  en- 
gineering, etc.,  belonging  to  a  socialist  club,  but  that 
they  did  very  strenuously  protest  against  the  professors 
of  sociology  or  political  economy  following  that  course. 


138  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO   SOCIOLOGY 

This  protest,  of  course,  is  because  of  the  fact  that  so- 
cialist opinions  or  any  other  radical  opinions  would  be 
directly  and  vitally  related  to  such  a  professor's  teach- 
ing. Such  is  the  influence  of  sociology,  however,  upon 
the  minds  of  its  teachers  that  there  is  probably  a  greater 
percentage  of  socialists  and  socialistically  inclined 
among  sociologists  than  the  professors  of  any  other  sci- 
ence. To  take  a  concrete  illustration:  in  the  University 
of  Chicago,  Professor  Small  is  the  Dean  of  the  Sociol- 
ogy Department.  His  writings  show  that  by  natural 
inclination  and  temperamental  predisposition,  he  is  a 
conservative  of  the  conservatives;  on  the  other  hand, 
Pfrofessor  Foster,  who  as  an  authority  on  the  phil- 
osophy of  religion  of  which  he  is  professor,  has 
probably  no  equal  in  this  country,  clearly  evidences 
by  the  tone  of  his  work  that  he  is  by  natural 
bent  a  radical  of  the  radicals.  His  labors  for  a 
wider  toleration  in  the  religious  world,  entitle  him  to 
the  respect  and  admiration  of  all  who  recognize  tolera- 
tion as  a  fundamental  necessity  of  social  progress.  Yet, 
so  thoroughly  is  the  mind  affected  by  the  material  in 
which  and  with  which  it  works,  that,  on  sociological 
questions  Sociologist  Small,  with  all  his  natural  con- 
servatism, easily  distances  divinity  Professor  Foster,  not- 
withstanding his  natural  endowment  of  progressive  ten- 
dencies. A  fair  test  of  the  validity  of  this  conclusion 
may  be  found  by  comparing  Chapter  XI  of  this  book 
with  Professor  Foster's  recent  pronouncement  that  "So- 
cialism would  suck  up  all  human  life  into  the  great 
question  of  the  stomach  and  would  like  to  bend  all  the 
higher  human  powers,  science,  art,  all  love  and  all  faith 
under  the  yoke  of  economic  necessity,  etc.,  etc."  Let 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  139 

us  compare  this  condemnation  with  Professor  Small's 
statement  on  precisely  the  same  point,  which  has  already 
been  quoted  in  Chapter  XI :  "Not  to  break  into  the  con- 
troversy as  to  what  Marx  did  or  did  not  say  about  the 
economic  interpretation  of  history,  or  'how  much  more 
remains  to  said,  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter  is 
the  homely  fact  that  if  there  is  anything  insecure  about 
a  man's  chances  of  getting  tomorrow's  dinner,  or  any- 
thing unjust  about  the  ways  in  which  he  is  forced  to 
use  the  chances,  there  will  be  nothing  quite  right  about 
the  rest  of  his  mental  or  emotional  or  moral  life."  And 
Small  adds:  "The  only  remarkable  thing  about  this 
proposition  is  that  there  are  still  intelligent  human  be- 
ings of  adult  age  who  have  not  discovered  that  it  is  a 
commonplace." 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  study  of  a  great 
and  widely  laid  science,  allied  with  sciences  which  have 
taught  it  the  imperative  need  of  the  scientific  method, 
has  enabled  Professor  Small  to  rid  himself  of  the  fool- 
ish, prattling  nonsense  about  socialism  which  exercises 
itself  in  the  editorial  columns  of  subsidized  newspapers. 
While  the  study  of  divinity,  which  has  wrecked  greater 
intellects  than  that  of  Professor  Foster,  has  left  him  the 
victim  of  misrepresentations  of  socialism  which  would 
disgrace  the  mental  acumen  of  the  average  dock  laborer. 

If  we  were  looking  for  an  example  of  how  reaction- 
ary opinions  may  take  root  even  among  sociologists 
whose  training  and  intellectual  environment  are  so  favor- 
able, we  might  find  it  in  Professor  Giddings.  We  have 
already  quoted  Professor  Giddings  where  we  found  him 
at  his  best  and  his  best  is  indeed  good,  but  we  confess 
to  having  read  almost  three  or  four  pages  at  a  time 


140  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

of  his  book  and  then  turning  back  again  and  reading 
them  over  in  an  effort  to  find  out  if  they  really  had  any 
ideological  content. 

The  history  of  sociology  and  the  history  of  philosophy 
have  one  thing  in  common ;  all  the  great  philosophers 
labored  to  establish  their  philosophies  on  some  founda- 
tion different  from  the  foundation  employed  by  their 
predecessors.  A  very  good  reason  for  this  was  that  the 
previous  foundation,  had  proved  thoroughly  inadequate 
to  the  support  of  the  superstructure  erected  upon  it.  A 
reading  of  the  literature  of  sociology  reveals  something 
which  suggests  the  comparison.  Each  sociologist  en- 
deavors to  find  a  foundation  of  his  own  upon  which  to 
build  his  interpretation  of  social  process  as  a  whole. 
Professor  Giddings  selects  as  his  basis  the  "conscious- 
ness of  kind."  In  our  opinion  the  criticism  of  this  theory 
offered  by  Professor  Small,  that  it  is  the  result  of  too 
much  admixture  of  subjective  interpretation  with  too 
small  a  quantity  of  objective  reality,  is  entirely  justifia- 
ble. This  lack  of  a  proper  ground  work  and  this  dis- 
position to  depart  from  the  necessity  of  verification  with 
reality  demanded  by  the  scientific  method,  comes  out 
very  startlingly  when  Professor  Giddings  reaches  his 
climax. 

There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for  the  value  of  "con- 
sciousness of  kind"  as  a  social  principle  or  social  force. 
It  might  be  said  that  much  more  of  it  is  desirable,  and 
as  Professor  Small  points  out,  what  we  have  seen  chiefly 
in  the  past  has  been  societies  rent  by  class  struggles  due 
to  the  "consciousness  of  unlikeness,"  which  at  bottom  is 
the  consciousness  of  unlike  interests,  and  which,  in  the 
language  of  Marx,  really  is  a  consciousness  of  difference 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  141 

of  class  interests.  If  consciousness  of  kind  should  ulti- 
mately triumph  we  should  naturally  expect  that  it  would 
wipe  out  differences  of  class,  social  differences  and  in- 
equalities growing  out  of  differences  of  color  and  na- 
tionality, and  we  should  surely  be  justified  in  believing 
that  it  would  operate  to  abolish  antagonisms  which  have 
grown  out  of  differences  of  creed.  What  is  our  sur- 
prise and  amazement  then  to  discover  that  Professor 
Giddings  finds  the  highest  expression  of  consciousness 
of  kind  in  the  Christian  religion,  and  especially  in  that 
particular  manifestation  which  takes  the  form  of  phi- 
lanthropy and  missionary  enterprise.  Lest  the  reader 
find  this  incredible,  we  shall  allow  Professor  Giddings 
to  speak  for  himself.  The  closing  paragraph  of  Chapter 
IV,  Book  III,  of  "Principles  of  Sociology/'  in  which 
chapter  Professor  Giddings  is  dealing  with  progress  as 
an  expansion  of  consciousness  of  kind,  is  as  follows: 

"The  successive  world-empires  of  Persia,  Macedonia, 
and  Rome  prepared  the  way  for  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  universal  brotherhood.  So  long  as  this  concep- 
tion was  nothing  more  than  an  esoteric  affirmation  that 
all  men  are  brothers,  because  they  are  the  children  of 
one  Father,  it  made  but  little  impression  on  the  social 
mind ;  but  when  by  the  genius  of  St.  Paul  it  was  con- 
verted into  an  ideal,  into  the  doctrine  that  all  men 
through  a  spiritual  renewing  may  become  brothers,  the 
new  faith  underwent  a  transformation  like  that  which 
converted  the  ethnic  into  the  civic  conception  of  the 
state,  and  Christianity  became  the  most  tremendous 
power  in  history.  Gradually  it  has  been  realizing  its 
ideal,  until,  today,  a  Christian  philanthropy  and  a  Chris- 
tian missionary  enterprise,  rapidly  outgrowing  the  eso- 
teric sentimentalism  of  their  youth,  and  devoting  them- 
selves to  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  to  the  improvement 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

of  conditions,  and  to  the  upbuilding  of  character,  are 
uniting  the  classes  and  the  races  of  men  in  a  spiritual 
humanity. 

The  idea  that  St.  Paul  was  a  great  champion  of  so- 
cial advancement  would  come  properly  enough  from 
the  Methodist  pulpit,  but  it  has  an  odd  look  in  the  pages 
of  a  treatise  on  modern  sociology.  Christian  philan- 
thropy, even  as  a  provisional  crutch,  has  proved  a  dis- 
mal failure  and  it  is  altogether  past  our  comprehension 
how  any  sociologist,  however  favorably  he  may  be  dis- 
posed toward  the  faith  named,  could  regard  it  as  any- 
thing more  than  the  merest  makeshift,  pending  the  reali- 
zation of  something  which  might  be  called  social  jus- 
tice. As  for  Christian  missionary  enterprise;  all  impar- 
tial investigations  have  gone  to  show  that  the  best  thing 
that  could  be  done  in  the  interests  of  the  Christian  mis- 
sionary societies  would  be  the  total  abolishment  of  all 
records  of  fact  concerning  it.  The  idea  that  Christianity 
is  the  great  motor  force  of  social  development  might 
obtain  some  recognition  in  a  theological  seminary,  but 
if  Professor  Giddings  imagines  that  it  will  ever  excite 
more  than  a  head-shake  among  the  sociologists  of  the 
future,  he  is  a  victim  of  the  same  blindness  which  has 
prevented  him  from  learning  anything  from  the  actual 
history  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  professor  has  prob- 
ably read  the  histories  already  referred  to,  by  White 
and  Draper,  and  we  might  suggest  that  he  read  them 
again  and  this  time  pay  some  attention  to  the  indisputa- 
ble facts  which  those  books  contain. 

The  history  of  thought  and  thinkers  presents  some 
strange  anomalies,  such  as  the  case  of  Wallace,  already 
referred  to,  writing  great  books  on  biology  and  talking 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  143 

twaddle  about  what  happened  in  a  pitch  dark  room  when 
his  hands  were  held  to  prevent  him  from  even  feeling 
about  him,  and  a  number  of  similar  instances  might  be 
cited,  to  which  we  may  now  add  Professor  Giddings, 
writing  splendidly  on  the  subject  of  cosmic  and  biolog- 
ical and  social  evolution  and  landing  in  the  closed  alley 
of  Christian  missionary  enterprise. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  SOCIAL  FORCES 

The  remainder  of  this  book  will  be  devoted  to  a  pre- 
sentation of  the  principal  social  theories  of  Lester  F. 
Ward.  These  pages  make  no  pretense  of  adding  any- 
thing new  to  existing  sociological  theories.  Only  a  few 
specially  favored  mortals  are  permitted  to  explode  the 
ancient  proverb  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the 
sun.  I  am  content  to  perform  the  humbler  task  of  in- 
terpreting the  great  ideas  born  of  the  research  of  others 
to  working  men  and  women  who  might  not  otherwise 
become  acquainted  with  them.  The  two  thousand  such 
working  men  and  women  who  have  composed  my  weekly 
lecture  audience  in  the  Garrick  Theatre  for  the  last  six 
years,  eleven  hundred  of  whom  purchased  this  book 
before  a  single  word  of  it  was  written,  have  kept  me 
busy  with  requests  for  advice  as  to  what  books  they 
should  read  in  order  to  obtain  the  best  possible  educa- 
tional results.  For  quite  some  time,  it  has  been  my  cus- 
tom to  answer  that  question  by  recommending  the  ques- 
tioners to  get  any  or,  if  they  could  afford,  all  of  the 
works  of  Lester  F.  Ward. 

For  many  centuries,  philosophers  and  scientists,  es- 
pecially the  former,  have  labored  to  discover  the  ulti- 
mate reality  of  the  universe.  The  result  has  been  a  gen- 
eral division  of  modern  thinkers  into  two  camps,  one 
maintaining  that  the  reality  consists  of  force;  the  other 
that  the  underivable  ultimate  is  to  be  found  in  matter. 

144 


THE  SOCIAL  FORCES  145 

Among  those  who  believe  in  the  supremacy  of  force 
probably  the  greatest  is  Herbert  Spencer.  Mr.  Spencer 
disposes  of  the  claims  of  matter  by  describing  it  as  sim- 
ply "centers  of  force."  To  Spencer  and  those  who  hold 
his  views,  Ward  gives  the  name  "dynamists." 

Ward  himself  maintains  that  matter  is  entitled  to  the 
throne,  and  he  and  those  who  agree  with  him  are  prop- 
erly called  materialists.  During  recent  years  it  has  been 
quite  the  fashion  to  assert  that  in  the  scientific  world 
materialism  has  been,  or  is  being,  abandoned.  No  state- 
ment could  be  further  from  the  truth.  Some  ideas  which 
have  been  represented  as  materialism  have  been  given 
up,  but  scientific  materialism,  in  our  estimation,  holds  an 
impregnable  position  and  the  trend  of  scientific  research 
is  destined  to  make  this  evident.  We  are  now  dealing 
with  the  first  volume  of  Ward's  "Dynamic  Sociology." 
Here  Ward  asks  and  answers  the  question,  What  is  mat- 
ter? 

"But  still  the  question  will  be  asked,  What  is  matter? 
A  definition  of  matter  is  impossible.  Matter  is  the  final 
limit  in  the  definition  of  everything  else.  Any  defini- 
tion would  involve  the  use  of  terms  requiring  the  no- 
tion of  matter  to  define  them.  When  we  have  said  that 
matter  is  what  it  appears  to  be,  we  have  defined  it  as 
far  as  it  admits  of  definition.  But,  while  the  term  mat- 
ter can  not  be  defined,  something  may,  perhaps,  be  said 
with  regard  to  the  ultimate  constitution  of  matter.  Al- 
though the  vulgar  impression  respecting  it  is  substan- 
tially correct,  and  the  speculations  of  the  metaphysicians 
are  incorrect,  it  must  still  be  admitted  that  the  former 
are  as  crude  as  the  latter  are  false.  The  vulgar  intel- 
lect, while  its  practical  intuitions  concerning  material  ob- 
jects are  in  the  main  just,  practical,  and  reliable,  never- 
theless has  no  adequate  conception  of  the  subtilty  of 


146  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

matter.  It  has  no  idea  of  the  minuteness  of  its  ultimate 
divisions.  It  looks  upon  matter  wholly  from  a  molar 
point  of  view,  and  knows  nothing  of  molecular  phe- 
nomena. If  molecular  phenomena  are  presented  to  such 
an  intellect,  they  are  not  referred  to  the  material  category 
at  all.  The  phenomena  of  light,  heat,  electricity,  and 
even  of  gases,  as  in  the  atmosphere,  are  not  considered 
as  material  agencies.  But  this  only  proves  that  the  man- 
ifestations of  matter  are  governed  by  uniform  laws, 
whatever  the  magnitude  of  the  aggregates  which  operate 
to  produce  those  manifestations.  I  do  not  mean  that 
there  is  anything  in  molar  phenomena  which  precisely 
corresponds  with  some  of  the  manifestations  of  molecu- 
lar phenomena,  but  simply  that  there  is  nothing  in 
molecular  phenomena  which  indicates  that  matter  in  the 
molecular  state  is  controlled  by  any  different  laws  from 
those  Which  control  it  in  the  mass.  The  most  successful 
experiments  in  molecular  physics  have  been  those  that 
have  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that  the  so-called 
molecular  forces  were  simply  the  manifestations  of  or- 
dinary matter  in  extremely  minute  particles  acting  rela- 
tively to  each  other  and  to  other  objects  precisely  as 
larger  particles  would  act  under  analogous  conditions." 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  that  Ward's  matter  is 
identical  with  Haeckel's  "substance/'  Having  dealt 
with  matter,  he  proceeds  to  consider  force.  Force  is 
held  to  be  simply  a  relation  of  matter.  Ward,  therefore, 
considers  that  the  universe  is  composed  of  aggregations 
of  matter.  The  material  aggregations  composing  the 
universe  are  three  in  number — the  inorganic  aggre- 
tion;  the  organic  aggregation;  and  the  social  aggrega- 
tion. These  aggregations  are  formed  by  a  system  of 
compounding  the  aggregates  previously  formed.  The 
organic  aggregation  is  formed  by  the  compounding  and 
recompounding  of  the  inorganic.  The  organic  aggre- 


THE  SOCIAL  FORCES  147 

gates — men — are  in  turn  compounded  and  re-compounded 
in  the  production  of  the  social  aggregate.  The  first  liv- 
ing result  of  the  compounding  and  re-compounding  of 
non-living  matter  is  protoplasm : 

"This  complex  stage  of  aggregation  is  no  longer  an 
hypothetical  one.  The  molar  aggregate  resulting  from 
such  a  re-compounding  of  the  albuminoids  has  been  dis- 
covered. It  exists  under  diverse  conditions,  and  mani- 
fests properties  fully  in  keeping  with  its  exalted  molecu- 
lar character.  This  substance,  discovered  by  Oken  in 
1809  and  denominated  Urschleim,  recognized  by  Du- 
jardin  in  1835  and  called  sarcode,  and  thoroughly  stud- 
ied by  Mohl  in  1846,  who  named  it  protoplasm,  has  now 
passed  unchallenged  into  the  nomenclature  of  modern 
organic  chemistry  under  the  last-mentioned  title. 

"Protoplasm  is  a  real  substance,  found  in  considerable 
abundance  in  nature,  not  only  within  the  tissues  of  or- 
ganized beings,  but,  as  we  might  almost  say,  in  a  min- 
eral state,  wholly  disconnected  from  such  beings.  There 
is  no  more  doubt  that  it  is  elaborated  out  of  the  inorganic 
elements  than  there  is  that  ammonia  or  common  salt  is 
thus  elaborated.  It  is  a  true  chemical  compound,  in 
which  the  proportions  of  each  element  are  known.  It 
contains  approximately  54  parts  of  carbon,  21  parts  of 
oxygen,  16  parts  of  nitrogen,  7  parts  of  hydrogen,  and 
2  parts  of  sulphur,  in  100  parts." 

Ward  then  traces  the  development  of  organic  life  from 
protoplasm  at  the  base,  to  man  at  the  top.  The  organic 
aggregation  includes  man,  not  only  as  to  the  develop- 
ment and  structure  of  his  body,  but  also  as  to  the  origin 
and  processes  of  his  mind.  This  brings  Ward  to  the 
third  great  aggregation — society.  In  the  opening  para- 
graph of  this  division,  he  gives  the  following  summary: 

"The  phenomena  of   sociology,   unlike  those   of  an- 


148  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

thropology,  but  equally  with  those  of  biology  and  psy- 
chology, present  us  with  an  additional  instance  of  the 
great  cosmic  process  of  aggregation  which  we  have 
sought  to  trace  out.  Just  as  the  highest  chemical  aggre- 
gates forming  the  chemical  substance  protoplasm  are 
compounded  and  re-compounded  in  the  formation  of 
physiological  and  then  of  morphological  units,  and  just 
as  these  are  further  re-compounded  to  form  organic  ag- 
gregates of  the  first,  second,  third,  etc.,  orders,  so  are 
the  highest  of  these  organic  aggregates,  or  men,  com- 
pounded anew,  on  precisely  the  same  principle,  to  form 
society.  And  this  is  the  last  and  highest  step  with 
which  we  are  acquainted  of  this  long,  unbroken  series 
of  cosmical  aggregations  leading  from  the  ultimate  ma- 
terial atom  up  to  social  aggregate."' 

In  the  history  of  society  Ward  recognizes  four  stages : 
The  first  stage  belongs  to  prehistoric  time,  when  man 
emerged  from  what  Ward  believes  to  have,been  the  con- 
dition of  solitude  into  the  formation  of  small  groups. 
The  second  stage  arrived  when  several  of  these  small 
groups  were  obliged  to  unite  as  the  only  alternative  to 
being  destroyed  by  the  unfavorable  elements  in  their  en- 
vironment. In  this  secondary  stage  of  social  develop- 
ment the  natural  antagonism  between  the  groups  now 
united  into  one  body  was  not  abolished,  but  simply  held 
in  restraint  in  the  interests  of  the  safety  of  the  group- 
federation.  In  order  to  make  this  restraint  permanent, 
thus  insuring  the  continued  existence  of  the  social  struc- 
ture, government  was  established.  The  establishment 
of  government  marks  the  third  stage  of  social  progress. 
Just  as  the  first  stage  is  purely  theoretical  and  belongs 
to  the  remote  past,  the  fourth  stage  is  almost  purely 
speculative  and  belongs  to  the  future.  The  fourth  stac^e 
will  be  reached  by  "a  triumph  of  practical  interests,  t!:at 


THE  SOCIAL  FORCES  149 

shall  sweep  away  the  present  barriers"of  languages,  na- 
tional pride,  and  natural  uncongeniality  and  unite  all 
nations  in  one  vast  social  aggregate  with  a  single  politi- 
cal organization." 

The  three  great  aggregations,  inorganic,  organic  and 
social,  are  theaters  for  the  operation  of  their  own  par- 
ticular forces.  The  forces  acting  in  the  inorganic  world 
are  chemical;  the  forces  of  the  organic  world  are  vital; 
the  forces  of  the  social  world  are  social  forces.  The 
forces  differ  in  these  different  worlds,  because  each 
world  is  composed  of  matter  organized  in  a  different  way. 

We  now  come  to  Ward's  treatment  of  "The  Social 
Forces."  At  the  outset  the  social  forces  separate  into 
two  main  divisions — the  essential  forces  and  the  non- 
essential  forces.  The  essential  forces  are  again  divided 
into  two  orders — the  preservative  forces  and  the  repro- 
ductive forces.  The  preservative  forces  and  the  repro- 
ductive forces  are  each  again  divided.  The  preservative 
forces  are  positive  and  negative.  The  positive  preser- 
vative forces  are  such  as  drive  us  to  seek  pleasure;  the 
negative  preservative  forces  are  such  as  compel  us  to 
avoid  pain.  The  preservative  forces  deal  with  the  main- 
tenance of  the  existing  generation.  They  are  the  forces 
which  drive  us  on  the  positive  side  to  seek  a  food  supply 
and  on  the  negative  side  to  seek  protection  from  cli- 
mate, etc.,  by  means  of  clothing  and  dwellings.  The 
reproductive  forces  deal  of  course,  not  with  the  preser- 
vation of  the  present  generation,  but  with  the  perpetua- 
tion of  the  race  by  means  of  sex.  Just  as  the  preserva- 
tive forces  are  positive  and  negative,  the  reproductive 
forces  are  direct  and  indirect.  As  the  positive  preser- 
vative forces  are  seeking  pleasure  by  means  of  satisfy- 


150  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ing  the  hunger  for  food,  the  direct  reproductive  forces 
seek  pleasure  by  the  satisfaction  of  the  sexual  and  ama- 
tive desires.  And  as  the  negative  preservative  forces 
seek  to  avoid  pain  by  protection  from  the  weather,  the 
indirect  reproductive  forces  seek  protection  of  offspring 
by  means  of  parental  and  consanguineal  affections.  This 
completes  the  catalogue  of  the  essential  forces.  These 
are  the  forces,  as  their  name  implies,  without  which  so- 
ciety cannot  exist. 

We  now  come  to  the  non-essential  forces.  These  are 
three  in  number:  first,  the  esthetic  force;  second,  the 
emotional  or  moral  force;  third,  the  intellectual  force. 
In  order  to  assist  his  readers  in  the  comprehension  of 
this  scheme  of  social  forces.  Ward  presents  in  "Dy- 
namic Sociology"  the  following  table,  which  re-appears 
at  a  later  date  without  modification  in  his  book  "Out- 
lines of  Sociology." 

W  f      g  f  Preservative    I  Positive»  gustatory  (seeking  pleasure), 
orces.        ^  Negative,  protective  (avoiding  pain). 


O 

& 

o 
f*.  -i 


Reproductive 


Direct<     The  sexual  and  amative  desires' 


W 


orces.        (indirect.  Parental  &  consanguineal  affections 


c  gj  f  ^Esthetic  Forces. 

^     O  t 

?,°  j- Emotional  (moral)  Forces. 

§•3  i 

Z-s  (.  Intellectual  Forces. 


In  his  further  analysis  of  these  social  forces,  Ward 
emphasizes  the  difference  between  feeling  and  function. 
The  preservative  forces  of  nutrition  operate,  not  through 
their  function,  but  through  the  feeling  of  hunger.  The 


THE  SOCIAL  FORCES  151 

seats  of  the  feelings  of  pleasure  which  accompany  eat- 
ing are  different  from  those  of  the  functions  which  oper- 
ate in  digestion.  Men  eat,  not  because  they  understand 
that  they  must  eat  in  order  to  live,  but  because  they  feel 
hungry.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  a  race  of  creatures 
might  exist,  who  would  require  food  as  much  as  we  do, 
but  who  would  have  no  feeling  of  hunger.  It  is  clear, 
however,  that  it  could  not  continue  to  exist  long,  because 
in  the  absence  of  the  feeling  of  hunger  eating  would 
be  suspended  and  extinction  would  follow.  The  same 
principle  applies  to  the  operation  of  the  reproductive 
forces.  From  the  point  of  view  of  feeling,  the  physical 
organs  of  reproduction  may  be  considered  as  the  seat 
of  a  special  class  of  desires ;  from  the  point  of  view  of 
function,  they  are  nature's  means  of  continuing  the  race. 
These  two  qualities  are  distinct  and  independent  in  the 
case  of  reproduction,  as  in  the  case  of  nutrition.  In 
nutrition  the  taste  is  pleasurable  and  conscious,  while 
digestion  is  an  unconscious  process.  Nature  has  placed 
powerful  guardians  of  feeling  at  the  gateways  of  both 
these  functions.  If  it  were  not  for  the  feelings  con- 
cerned in  the  reproductive  process,  it  is  practically  cer- 
tain that  race  suicide  would  be  the  consequence. 

Ward  proceeds  to  unite  the  two  essential  social  forces 
under  one  title.  This  single  title  is  "Desire."  His  best 
statement  of  this  principle  is  to  be  found  in  his  chapter 
on  the  "Philosophy  of  Desire,"  in  "Psychic  Factors  of 
Civilization" : 

"This  much,  at  least,  has  been  learned,  that  desire  is 
the  all-pervading,  world-animating  principle,  the  univer- 
sal nisus  and  pulse  of  nature,  the  mainspring  of  all  ac- 
tion, and  the  life-power  of  the  world.  It  is  organic 


152  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

force.  Its  multiple  forms,  like  the  many  forces  of  the 
physical  world,  are  the  varied  expressions  of  one  uni- 
versal force.  They  are  transmutable  into  one  another. 
Their  sum  is  unchanged  thereby,  and  all  vital  energy  is 
conserved.  It  is  the  basis  of  psychic  physics  and  the 
only  foundation  for  a  science  of  mind. 

"It  should,  however,  be  added  that  the  parallel  be- 
tween physics  and  psychics,  as  thus  defined,  fails  at  one 
point.  While,  so  far  as  is  known,  there  has  never  been 
any  loss  of  psychic  energy,  it  is  certain  that  there  has 
been  an  immense  increase  of  it.  Indeed,  time  was 
when  none  existed.  It  has  developed  or  been  evolved 
with  all  organic  nature  and  has  increased  pari  passu 
with  the  increase  of  mind  and  the  development  of  brain. 
Complete  analogy  between  the  organic  and  inorganic 
forces  is  not  reached  until  it  is  recognized  that  the 
former  are  derived  from  the  latter,  and  that  vital  and 
psychic  forces  are  simply  additional  forms  of  the  uni- 
versal force.  The  soul  of  man  has  come  from  the  soul 
of  the  atom  after  passing  through  the  great  alembic  of 
organic  life." 

The  non-essential  forces  are  of  three  classes;  first, 
those  of  the  senses  of  sight  and  hearing — the  esthetic 
forces.  These  include  sculpture,  painting,  landscape 
gardening,  architecture,  etc.,  which  appeal  to  the  eye; 
and  music,  which  appeals  to  the  ear. 

The  second  class  of  the  non-essential  forces,  are  the 
moral  forces.  These  are  made  up  in  Ward's  classifica- 
tion of  the  love  forces  and  the  fear  forces.  The  love 
forces  are  bound  up  in  sex,  from  which  they  undoubt- 
edly derive  their  origin.  The  fear  forces  are  of  two 
kinds — the  physical  fear  forces  and  the  psychical  fear 
forces.  The  physical  fear  forces  are  fear  of  violence, 
fear  of  man,  fear  of  animals,  fear  of  inanimate  nature, 


THE  SOCIAL  FORCES  153 

and  the  fear  of  disease.  The  psychical  fear  forces  are 
described  as  "those  fears  and  hopes,  which  men  exped- 
ience of  harm  or  good  to  their  supposed  immaterial  part, 
the  soul."  All  the  psychic  fear  forces  are  of  a  religious 
nature.  The  chief  of  these  fears  is  due  to  the  belief  in 
punishment  in  a  future  life. 

Ward,  in  his  treatment  of  this  question,  and  of  ail 
phases  of  the  religious  question,  writes  with  a  breadth 
and  a  scientific  and  philosophical  grasp  which  entitle 
him  to  a  place  with  Comte  and  Spencer,  and  is  in  marked 
contrast  to  the  feeble  puerility  of  Professor  Giddings' 
laudations  of  Christian  missionary  enterprise. 

As  we  shall  lack  space  for  a  contemplated  chapter 
dealing  with  Ward's  views  of  religion  as  a  social  factor, 
we  shall  quote  at  length  in  this  place  what  Ward  has 
to  say  on  the  subject,  under  the  head  of  "Psychical  Fear- 
Forces."  Ward  is  discussing  two  great  religions  which 
include  a  future  life  in  their  tenets — Christianity  and 
Mohammedanism.  He  is  discussing  the  effect  upon  mod- 
ern civilization  of  the  appearance  in  history  of  these 
two  faiths. 

"Without  speculating  upon  the  influence  of  Christian- 
ity, and  later,  of  Mohammedanism,  in  Asia,  where  the 
people  were  less  enlightened,  and  where  the  form  of 
religion,  probably,  did  little  either  to  elevate  or  degrade 
them,  we  will  turn  our  attention  to  Europe,  where,  es- 
pecially in  Greece  and  Italy,  literature  and  the  arts  were 
in  a  high  state  of  cultivation.  The  question  then  is,  In 
what  respect  would  the  civilization  of  Europe  be  differ- 
ent from  what  it  is  todav  had  the  Grecian  polytheism 
remained  unmolested  by  Christianity  and  all  other  forms 
of  faith? 

"Greece  and  Rome  maintained  toward  the  national  re- 


154  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ligion  an  attitude  quite  analogous  to  that  which  Ger- 
many, France,  Great  Britain,  and  America  present  now 
toward  Christianity.  The  masses  believed  and  went 
through  the  ceremonies,  while  the  philosophers  and 
school-men  stood  aloof  and  remained  indifferent  to  re- 
ligion, appearing  to  consider  it  beneath  their  notice,  just 
as  now  the  rank  and  file  observe  the  forms  of  the 
Church,  while  the  most  cultivated,  and  notably  those 
engaged  in  scientific  investigation,  are  for  the  most  part 
indifferent  to  religion,  and  do  not  feel  called  upon  to 
devote  any  time  from  their  pursuits  to  its  consideration. 
"There  were  indications,  then,  that  the  bonds  of  re- 
ligious restraint  were  about  to  fall  from  the  people,  and 
the  light  of  knowledge  be  admitted  to  all,  just  as  now 
we  see  the  forms  of  religion  more  and  more  ignored, 
and  education  further  and  further  extended.  But  Chris- 
tianity rekindled  the  religious  zeal,  proscribed  philoso- 
phy, abolished  the  schools,  and  plunged  the  world  into 
an  abyss  of  darkness  from  which  it  only  emerged  after 
twelve  hundred  years.  Ignorant  of  what  would  have 
happened  if  this  had  not  happened,  nothing  is  left  but 
to  regard  the  advent  of  Christianity  as  a  calamity.  And, 
if  we  look  at  the  history  of  Christianity,  we  find  that  its 
activities  have  been  so  intense  and  its  deeds  so  violent 
that  it  has  been  almost  impossible  for  thought  to  obtain 
a  foot-hold.  Mohammedanism  was  no  better,  but  its 
field  of  operations  has  been  less  unfortunate." 

Finally  Ward  reaches  the  last  of  the  non-essential 
forces — the  intellectual  forces.  The  question  of  the  role 
enacted  by  the  intellect  in  the  social  process  is  too  great 
to  be  disposed  of  in  these  closing  sentences,  and  it  will 
form  the  theme  of  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER    XV 

FACTORS   OF  SOCIAL   PROGRESS 

In  studying  the  works  of  Lester  F.  Ward,  there  is  one 
question  of  deep  interest  and  paramount  importance 
brought  forward  again  and  again, — the  part  played  by 
the  intellect  in  the  social  process.  In  Ward's  plotting 
of  social  development  the  intellect  is  not  catalogued  as 
a  motor  force.  As  we  have  already  seen,  a  grand  so- 
cial force,  which  is  in  the  social  world  what  gravitation 
is  in  the  physical,  is  "desire."  By  desire  is  meant  those 
imperative  appetites  which  are  common  to  all  mankind 
and  equally  common  to  all  the  higher  animals,  the  ap- 
petites of  hunger  and  sex.  It  is  true  there  is  an  in- 
tellectual appetite,  but  this,  unfortunately,  is  far  from 
being  universal  and  this  lack  of  universality,  and  its 
general  existence  in  a  low  state  of  intensity,  prevents  it 
from  being  a  social  force  except  in  a  secondary  sense. 

A  clear  statement  of  this  occurs  in  the  first  volume 
of  "Dynamic  Sociology:" 

"The  mind-force,  as  popularly  understood,  is  no  force, 
but  only  a  condition.  It  does  not  propel,  it  only  directs. 
It  is  not  mind,  except  within  the  narrow  limits  of  this 
definition,  that  achieves  the  vast  results  which  civiliza- 
tion presents,  and  which,  it  must  be  admitted,  could  not 
be  achieved  without  it.  It  is  the  great  social  forces 
which  we  have  been  passing  in  review  that  have  accom- 
plished all  this.  Mind  simply  guides  them  in  their 
course.  The  office  of  mind  is  to  direct  society  into  un- 
obstructed channels,  to  enable  these  forces  to  continue 
in  free  play,  to  prevent  them  from  being  neutralized  by 

155 


156  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGT 

collision  with  obstacles  in  their  path.  In  a  word,  mind 
has  for  its  function  in  civilization  to  preserve  the  dy- 
namic and  prevent  the  statical  condition  of  the  social 
forces,  to  prevent  the  restoration  of  equilibrium  be- 
tween the  social  forces  and  the  natural  forces  operating 
outside  of  them.  Just  as  it  is  not  psychological  force 
which  propels  the  water-wheel  or  the  piston — which 
could  not,  nevertheless,  be  made  to  operate  without  it — 
but  merely  the  forces  of  gravity  and  gaseous  expansion 
compelled  by  mechanical  power  under  the  guidance  of 
intelligence  to  operate  for  the  benefit  of  man,  so  it  is  not 
mind  which  moves  the  civilization  of  the  world,  but  only 
the  great  and  never-ceasing  forces  of  society,  which  but 
for  the  guidance  of  mind  would  rush  blindly  on  into 
a  thousand  entanglements  with  rival  forces,  and  assume 
that  position  of  statical  e]uilibrium  which  represents 
social  stagnation.  The  only  proper  intellectual  propel- 
ling force  in  society  is  the  desire  which  the  mental  organ 
experiences  in  common  with  all  the  rest  to  act,  and  the 
immediate  results  which  flow  from  its  activity." 

The  above  passage,  though  stripping  the  mind  of  any 
claim  to  be  considered  a  social  force,  nevertheless  pre- 
sents it  in  a  role  of  great  importance.  While  the  mind 
is  not  essential  to  social  existence,  it  is  the  sole  cause 
of  social  progress.  This  conception  is  somewhat  baffling 
and  difficult  to  grasp,  but  it  is  none  the  less  true,  and 
certainly  is  the  position  taken  by  Ward.  The  introduc- 
tion to  the  volume  above  named  presents  a  very  inter- 
esting study  of  this  whole  problem.  This  shows  that, 
throughout  history,  it  is  feeling  and  not  intellect  which 
has  influenced  human  action.  The  great  and  successful 
religious  systems  of  Menu,  Zoroaster,  Confucius,  Jesus, 
and  Mohammed  make  their  appeal  not  to  the  intellect, 
but  to  the  feelings.  The  consequence  was  that,  while 


FACTORS  OF  SOCIAL  PROGRESS          157 

they  were  great  successes  in  extending  their  influence 
over  the  actions  of  men,  they  were  utter  failures  so  far 
as  the  amelioration  of  the  conditions  of  society  is  con- 
cerned. It  is  generally  said  that  social  energy  with  no 
progressive  result  is  due  to  these  great  religious  sys- 
tems having  stimulated  only  the  non-progressive  factors, 
the  feelings,  and  not  the  intellectual  factor,  without  the 
operation  of  which  social  progress  is  impossible.  We 
now  see  the  difference  between  social  existence  and  so- 
cial progress.  The  Orient  is  an  illustration  of  the  fact 
that  social  existence  may  continue  indefinitely  without 
anything  that  could  properly  be  called  progress.  In  the 
Occidental  world  we  are  so  accustomed  to  the  idea  of 
progress  that  we  imagine  it  to  be  universal,  but  the  East- 
ern world  is  non-progressive,  and  so  far  from  desiring 
progress,  it  hates  and  despises  it. 

Ward's  theory  is  that  while  action  proceeds  from  the 
feelings,  the  question  as  to  whether  the  action  thus  gen- 
erated will  be  static — leaving  society  where  it  is — or 
dynamic  —  driving  society  forward  —  depends  upon 
whether  the  action  is  or  is  not  guided  by  the  intellect. 
That  there  may  be  no  doubt  as  to  Ward's  conceding 
the  intellect  to  be  the  sole  source  of  progress,  we  quote 
the  following: 

"And  when  I  assert  that  all  the  control  that  can  ever 
be  exerted  over  mankind  must,  in  the  future  as  in  the 
past,  emanate  from  the  side  of  feeling  and  not  of  in- 
tellect, and  promise  a  mitigation  of  the  hardships  of 
existence,  at  the  same  time  I  unqualifiedly  maintain  that 
all  the  true  progress  which  has  in  fact  taken  place  in 
the  world  has  come  from  the  side  of  intellect  and  not 
of  feeling." 


158  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

* 

The  terms  civilization  and  social  progress  mean  prac- 
tically the  same  thing.  Civilization  is  artificial;  in  this 
it  differs  from  organic  phenomena,  which  is  natural. 
This  difference  between  the  natural  world  of  biology 
and  the  artificial  world  of  sociology  finds  expression  as 
follows:  In  the  animal  world  a  change  is  produced  by 
the  action  of  environment  upon  the  animal.  The  an- 
imal being  devoid  of  the  intellectual  faculty,  at  least  in 
any  degree  sufficient  to  make  progress  possible,  must 
adapt  itself  to  its  environment  or  perish.  In  the  human 
social  world  this  process  is  to  a  considerable  extent  re- 
versed. Man,  by  means  of  his  intellect,  is  able  to  act 
effectively  upon  his  environment.  This  is  expressed  by 
Ward  in  the  following  formula:  "The  environment 
transforms  the  animal  while  man  transforms  the  en- 
vironment." Civilization,  according  to  Ward^-  consists 
in  achievement.  Achievement  is  purely  human;  the  an- 
imal achieves  nothing;  the  organic  world  is  passive. 
The  achievement  which  constitutes  civilization  is  in  a 
certain  given  direction;  it  comprises  all  efforts  which 
have  succeeded  in  utilizing  the  materials  and  forces  of 
nature  to  human  advantage.  This  is  accomplished  by 
means  of  inventions.  Therefore,  civilization  may  be 
said  to  consist  of  inventions,  as  it  is  said  to  consist  of 
achievements.  There  can  be  no  question  that  inventions 
are  due  to  the  operations  of  the  intellect ;  the  feelings,  or 
emotions,  invent  nothing. 

The  struggle  for  existence  is  universal,  as  Darwin  has 
shown.  The  history  of  the  human  race  is  the  record  of 
man's  struggle  against  the  universe;  a  struggle  of  the 
microcosm  against  the  macrocosm.  Man  has  succeeded 


FACTORS  OF  SOCIAL  PROGRESS  159 

where  the  animal  failed,  because  he  was  armed  with  a 
superior  weapon — the  intellect.  The  difference  between 
the  savage  and  the  civilized  man  is  not  a  difference  of 
feelings  or  appetites,  it  is  a  difference  of  intellect.  The 
difference  between  the  feelings  and  appetites  of  civil- 
ized man,  and  animals  far  below  the  savage,  is  not  very 
considerable.  The  love  of  a  human  mother  for  her 
child  is  not,  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  any  greater  or  more 
sincere  than  that  of  a  lioness  for  her  cubs;  nor  is  there 
any  difference  of  food  hunger.  The  difference  of  con- 
dition between  the  animal  in  the  jungle  and  men  enjoy- 
ing the  pleasures  and  refinements  of  civilized  life,  is 
due  solely  to  a  difference  of  intellectual  faculties. 

The  first  great  victory  of  man  over  the  cosmos  was 
his  mastery  of  fire.  It  is  probable  that  long  before  he 
knew  how  to  kindle  a  fire  he  learned  to  keep  one  alive 
after  it  had  been  kindled  by  lightning  or  the  sun;  but 
even  this  has  never  been  achieved  by  any  animal  below 
man.  Travelers  relate  that  monkeys  will  hover  about 
a  camp  and  when  it  is  deserted  will  gather  with  keen 
enjoyment  about  the  camp-fire.  Although  they  are  next 
to  man  in  psychic  equipment,  and  although  they  have 
observed  men  piling  fuel  upon  the  fire  and  are  them- 
selves adapted  to  the  handling  of  twigs  and  boughs,  they 
are  utterly  incapable  of  keeping  the  fire  alive.  They 
have  much  the  same  emotional  equipment,  but  they  are 
wholly  lacking  in  intellectual  capacity.  It  is  because 
animals  are  the  slaves  of  their  environment  that  they 
can  only  live  in  such  parts  of  the  globe  as  possess  a 
suitable  climate.  If  the  climate  changes,  they  must  mi- 
grate. Even  the  change  from  summer  to  winter  pro- 


160  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

duces  vast  migrations  in  the  animal  world,  but  because 
man  pessesses  an  intellect  which  enables  him  to  invent 
clothes  and  houses  he  can  live  where  he  pleases,  within 
certain  limits,  and  this  is  how  he  comes  to  be  so  gener- 
ally distributed  over  the  surface  of  the  planet. 

After  the  savage  had  invented  the  art  of  making  fire 
by  rubbing  two  sticks  together,  the  value  of  his  achieve- 
ment did  not  consist  of  the  fires  that  were  actually  burn- 
ing, but  of  his  knowledge  of  how  to  make  other  fires 
should  these  go  out.  In  the  same  way,  in  the  modern 
world,  the  value  of  the  machine  process  of  wealth  pro- 
duction does  not  consist  of  the  machines  in  actual  ex- 
istence and  operation  but  in  the  knowledge  of  how  to 
make  machinery  and  how,  by  the  use  of  machinery,  to 
produce  great  varieties  of  useful  articles.  The  achieve- 
ment which  constitutes  civilization  consists,  therefore, 
of  a  great  mass  of  items  of  knowledge,  steadily  accumu- 
lated throughout  history.  Every  age  has  inherited  the 
achievements  of  the  preceding  age  and  has  stood  upon 
them  as  upon  a  platform,  and  that  age,  by  means  of  its 
own  achievements,  built  a  new  platform  a  little  higher. 
Thus,  in  the  language  of  Ward,  "the  platforms  of  the 
previous  ages  become  the  steps  in  the  great  stairway  of 
civilization  and  these  steps  remain  unmoved  and  are 
perpetuated  by  human  history." 


CHAPTER    XVI 
WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS 

In  this  chapter,  we  shall  present  the  reader  with  a 
summary  of  the  most  complete  scheme  of  the  social 
process  which  we  have  met  with  in  the  entire  range  of 
the  literature  of  sociology.  It  is  the  scheme  presented 
by  Lester  F.  Ward  in  the  second  volume  of  "Dynamic 
Sociology." 

HAPPINESS 

Ward  begins  by  asking  what  it  is  that  constitutes  the 
ultimate  goal  of  all  human  endeavor.  What  is  it  that 
all  the  sons  of  men  are  forever  pursuing,  as  the  me- 
dieval knights  pursued  the  Holy  Grail  and  the  Golden 
Fleece?  Ward  finds  the  answer  in  a  single  word — 
"happiness."  "At  the  basis  of  every  philosophical  sys- 
tem involving  the  interests  of  men  lie  the  phenomena  of 
feeling.  These  phenomena  constitute  the  substratum 
of  sociology."  Society  rests  upon  feeling  as  the  city 
stands  upon  the  ground.  The  importance  and  signifi- 
cance of  the  phenomena  of  feeling  are  not  limited  to 
sociology,  but  reach  back  into  biology.  The  world  of 
life  has  two  main  divisions — vegetable  and  animal.  Be* 
tween  these  two  there  is  no  clear  dividing  line,  and 
probably  the  safest  principle  of  classification  is  to  de- 
termine the  plant  from  the  animal  by  the  presence  of 
feeling  in  the  one  and  the  absence  of  feeling  in  the 
other.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  difference  between  the 
sentient  and  insentient.  The  evolution  of  life  from  the 

161 


162  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

insentient  to  the  sentient  is  one  of  the  great  strides  in 
the  cosmic  process.  The  origin  and  development  of  feel- 
ing is  one  of  the  grand  problems  of  biology.  Its  ex- 
planation is  to  be  found  in  the  natural  selection  theory 
of  Darwin.  Capacity  for  feeling  gave  the  creature  pos- 
sessing it  an  advantage  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 
Creatures  of  keen  feeling  were  quick  to  avoid  pain, 
which  is  the  highway  to  death,  and  eager  for  pleasure, 
which  is  the  path  to  life.  Feeling  has  two  sides,  a 
positive  and  a  negative.  The  positive  side  is  the  love 
of  pleasure,  the  negative  is  the  fear  of  pain.  Without 
feeling  there  would  be  no  intimation  of  danger,  and 
frequent  exposures  to  dangers  would  result  in  time  in 
the  utter  extinction  of  every  form  of  life.  The  pleasures 
of  eating  and  the  pleasures  of  sex  are  the  two  influ- 
ences which,  on  the  positive  side,  preserve  and  perpetu- 
ate all  the  higher  forms  of  life.  The  forces  which  pro- 
tect life  are  not  the  love  of  life  or  the  desire  to  live  nor 
yet  the  dread  of  death.  They  are  the  love  of  pleasure  and 
the  dread  of  pain.  If  the  hare  flees  from  the  hound 
it  is  not  because  of  the  fear  of  death  or  the  love  of  life. 
The  hare  knows  nothing  about  the  phenomena  of  death. 
Its  flight  is  urged  by  the  dread  of  pain  which  it  knows 
would  be  inflicted  by  the  teeth  of  the  dog.  In  the  same 
way  the  child  avoids  the  fire  or  the  hot  stove,  not  out 
of  fear  for  its  life,  but  in  fear  of  the  pain  that  accom- 
panies burning.  We  have  seen  in  a  prior  chapter  that 
men  eat  because  hunger  is  a  pain  which  they  seek  to  re- 
move, and  the  process  of  eating  produces  a  distinct 
pleasure  from  the  gustatory  nerves.  If  there  were 
neither  pleasure  nor  pain  connected  with  eating,  living 
forms  would  vanish  through  starvation.  The  same  is 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS         163 

true  of  the  functions  of  sex,  and  any  attempt  to  per- 
suade men  and  women  to  increase  the  population  from 
any  such  abstract  motive  as  the  good  of  the  state  could 
only  issue  from  the  uninformed  mind  of  a  Roosevelt. 

The  only  reason  acts  that  are  performed  to  avoid  pain 
have  the  effect  of  preserving  life  is  to  be  found  in  the 
close  relation  of  death  and  pain.  We  all  recognize  that 
intense  and  prolonged  pain  must  result  in  death.  This 
recognition  is  not  based  on  logic.  It  is  quite  conceiva- 
ble so  far  as  our  laws  of  thought  are  concerned  that  a 
creature  might  be  in  pain  indefinitely  and  still  escape 
death,  but  experience  tells  a  different  story.  All  our- 
experience  shows  that  wherever  pain  is  intense  and  un- 
remitting, death  is  the  result.  Religionists  who  depict 
future  states  of  eternal  tortures  and  never-ending  hells 
have  a  conception  that  is  purely  logical,  but  that  is  in 
direct  contradiction  to  all  experience. 

All  animal  life  has  two  great  necessities,  nutrition  and 
reproduction.  Human  social  life  marks  the  appear- 
ance of  a  third,  development  or  improvement.  The  first 
two  are  absolutely  necessary,  and  we  are  beginning  to 
recognize  more  and  more  the  importance  of  the  third. 
The  principle  of  development  has  occupied  a  high  place 
since  the  establishing  of  the  theory  of  evolution.  The 
development  process  is  now  recognized  as  universal — 
nothing  stands  still.  China  may  seem  to  stand  still  for 
a  thousand  centuries,  but  a  closer  examination  will  re- 
veal some  movement.  A  nebular  mass  may  show  little 
change  in  a  million  years,  but  it  is  changing  neverthe- 
less. Change  is  the  law  of  all  things.  This  law  was 
formulated  by  Spencer  as  "the  instability  of  the  homo- 


164  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

geneous."  Development  is  especially  important  for  hu- 
man society,  because,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  devel- 
opment is  the  chief  means  by  which  we  are  able  to  in- 
crease the  sum  of  human  pleasure.  In  seeking  to  in- 
crease pleasurable  feelings  and  avoid  painful  feelings, 
we  are  seeking  by  a  double  road  the  one  end,  happi- 
ness. Happiness  is  defined  by  Ward  as  "excess  of  pleas- 
ure, or  enjoyment,  over  pain,  or  discomfort/'  This 
brings  us  to  what  Ward  calls  the  first  theorem  of  dy- 
namic sociology,  which  theorem  is  expressed  in  the  fol- 
lowing formula :  "Happiness  is  the  ultimate  end  of  cona- 
tion." 

The  word  conation  may  be  new  to  the  reader.  It  is 
from  the  Latin  conari,  which  means  "to  endeavor." 
Ward's  first  theorem  then  means  that  happiness  is  the 
ultimate  end  and  aim  of  all  human  effort  or  endeavor. 
This  passage  places  Ward  among  the  utilitarians,  to 
whom  the  end  of  action  is  the  greatest  good  of  the  great- 
est number.  When  social  class  divisions  are  abolished 
and  antagonistic  interests  have  disappeared,  the  utili- 
tarian formula  may  be  enlarged  to  "the  greatest  good 
of  all."  Having  found  the  aim  and  goal  of  all  human 
effort,  our  next_task  is  to  find  how  the  existing  sum  of 
happiness  may  be  increased. 

PROGRESS 

The  answer  to  the  above  question  as  to  how  happi- 
ness may  be  increased  is  given  by  Ward  in  the  word 
"progress."  Progress  is  defined  as  "success  in  harmon- 
izing natural  phenomena  with  human  advantage."  So 
closely  are  happiness  and  progress  lashed  together,  in 
the  estimation  of  Ward,  that  he  is  willing  to  accept  as 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS        165 

a  definition  of  social  progress  whatever  increases  the 
sum  total  of  human  happiness.  The  grand  difference 
between  happiness  and  progress  is  that  happiness  is  the 
end,  while  progress  is  the  means.  If  we  ask,  What  is 
progress  good  for?  we  may  answer,  Progress  is  good 
because  it  is  a  means  to  increase  human  happiness;  but, 
if  we  ask,  What  is  happiness  good  for?  there  is  no  an- 
swer. Happiness  is  good,  not  as  a  means  to  something 
else,  but  for  what  it  is  in  itself. 

Progress  has  its  origin  in  the  fact  that  throughout 
the  living  world  possibility  is  always  in  excess  of  op- 
portunity. Among  animals  reproduction  encroaches 
upon  nutrition;  population  intrenches  upon  the  means 
of  subsistence.  Creatures  bring  forth  a  million  eggs 
but  the  population  does  not  increase  a  million  times,  it 
remains  stationary,  because  of  a  fixed  food  supply.  The 
desire  for  expansion  and  the  infinite  possibilities  for  ex- 
pansion which  are  bound  up  in  the  life  substance  itself 
are  constantly  meeting  with  checks  and  limitations.  As 
brain  power  develops  and  powers  of  perception  increase, 
there  also  grows  a  steady  dissatisfaction  with  these 
checks  and  limitations  and  an  ever  increasing  desire  to 
remove  them.  It  is  the  removal  of  these  barriers  of 
environment  which  constitutes  progress.  One  of  the 
first  steps  in  progress  is  to  remove  the  barrier  of  a  lim- 
ited food  supply.  In  fact  there  is  no  progress  until  this- 
is  done,  and,  as  no  animal  below  man  has  been  equal 
to  this  task,  progress  is  strictly  limited  to  the  human 
family.  All  the  barriers  in  the  way  of  human  advance- 
ment have  been  removed  by  exertion  of  the  intellect. 
The  barrier  of  a  limited  food  supply  was  abolished  by 


166  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

the  invention  of  agriculture.  Another  barrier  to  ad- 
vancement from  the  animal  stage  consisted  of  the  pres- 
ence of  powerful  enemies.  This  barrier  man  abolished 
by  the  invention  of  weapons.  The  great  results  arising 
from  these  two  causes  alone  may  be  seen  in  the  domes- 
tic animals.  When  the  animal  is  taken  from  its  native 
wilds,  it  is  removed  from  scarcity  of  food  and  a  pleni- 
tude of  enemies  and  placed  in  a  condition  where  the 
food  supply  is  unlimited  and  its  enemies  are  absent.  In 
other  words,  under  domestication  it  reaps  the  advantage 
which  progress  has  obtained  by  breaking  down  the  bar- 
riers of  the  natural  environment.  The  effects  upon  ani- 
mals are  immediate  and  pronounced.  Forces  of  devel- 
opment which  exist  in  all  animals  in  excess  of  their  lim- 
ited opportunities  are  immediately  given  free  play.  They 
become  sleek  and  large  and  heavy.  The  savage  vicjous- 
ness  which  was  developed  by  the  struggle  for  food  dis- 
appears and  gentleness  and  affection  take  its  place. 
When  domesticated  animals  are  returned  to  the  state 
of  nature  they  rapidly  revert  to  their  former  condition. 
They  become  lean  and  gaunt  and  savage.  This  is  be- 
cause they  are  no  longer  able  to  reap  the  advantages  of 
human  progress.  They  are  once  more  the  slaves  of  an 
environment  which  limits  their  food  supply,  surrounds 
them  with  destructive  enemies,  and  thereby  restricts  the 
development  of  which  they  are  eminently  capable.  What 
is  true  of  animals  in  this  way  is  true  in  a  very  much 
larger  degree  of  mankind. 

Human  progress  has  moved  along  two  chief  lines: 
first,  the  increase  of  power  to  extract  from  nature  addi- 
tional supplies  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  This  Ward 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS         167 

sums  up  under  the  general  head  "subsistence."  The 
other  development  grows  out  of  the  necessity  of  men 
who  are  interdependent  upon  each  other  being  able  to 
communicate  with  each  other,  and  is  summed  up  by 
Ward  in  the  word  "communication."  Under  the  head 
of  "communication"  Ward  discusses  the  origin  and  de- 
velopment of  language.  In  the  direction  of  increased 
possibilities  of  subsistence,  progress  has  been  achieved 
by  invention.  Invention  led  to  the  arts.  Very  early 
came  the  arts  of  hunting  and  fishing;  later  the  art  of 
agriculture,  and  finally  the  highest  art  bearing  on  sub- 
sistence, the  art  of  manufacture.  Progressive  factors 
were  those  sciences  out  of  which  sprang  arts — as  navi- 
gation, which  is  the  basis  of  commerce,  sprang  from  the 
science  of  astronomy.  All  civilization  is  artificial — based 
on  arts.  Ward  finds  his  non-progressive  factors  in  gov- 
ernment and  religion.  The  sciences  are  sources  of  pro- 
gress because  they  are  correct  interpretations  of  our 
natural  environment,  and,  as  they  enable  us  to  under- 
stand our  natural  environment,  they  are  the  necessary 
preliminaries  to  the  arts  which  enable  us  to  go  further 
and  transform  the  environment;  but  the  transformation 
of  art  could  not  be  wrought  without  the  understanding 
furnished  by  science.  Religion  is  condemned  as  a  non- 
progressive  factor,  because  it  is  a  collection  of  errors 
about  our  environment.  In  his  consideration  of  religion 
Ward  has  the  following  interesting  illustration: 

"If  a  convention  of  all  the  religions  on  the  globe  were 
to  be  called,  each  sect  being  represented  by  one  delegate, 
and  the  question  were  to  be  voted  upon  in  the  case  of 
each  religion  separately,  Is  this  religion  true?  or,  Is 
this  religion  beneficial  to  man?  the  result  would  inevita- 


168  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

bly  be  that  only  one  affirmative  vote  would  be  cast  in 
each  case,  and  that  would  be  the  vote  of  the  delegate  of 
the  particular  religion  upon  which  the  vote  was  taken; 
and,  if  the  action  of  this  convention  with  regard  to  the 
feasibility  of  preserving  or  abolishing  religions  could 
be  conclusive,  it  would  be  found  that  all  the  religions 
of  the  world  would  be  overwhelmingly  voted  down  and 
abolished,  and  this  by  the  action  of  avowed  religionists 
alone." 

The  whole  question  of  religion  is  extensively  dis- 
cussed by  Ward  under  the  head  of  "progress."  The 
object  of  the  discussion  is  to  discover  whether  religion 
should  be  considered  as  a  progressive  or  a  non-progress- 
ive influence  in  the  social  process.  Ward  arrives  at  the 
following  conclusion: 

"Upon  the  whole,  therefore,  we  must  conclude  that 
there  is  no  direction  in  which  the  belief  in  spiritual  be- 
ings has  advanced  the  temporal  interests  of  mankind, 
and  that  therefore  such  belief,  if  it  is  of  any  advantage 
to  the  race,  must  be  so  in  virtue  of  gains  which  it  is 
to  bring  in  a  future  state  of  existence — a  field  of  dis- 
cussion which,  of  course,  lies  outside  of  the  province 
of  this  work  and  of  all  scientific  investigation.  It  fur- 
ther appears  that  the  real  advantages  which  seem  to 
flow  from  some  of  the  modern  forms  of  such  belief  are 
really  due  to  the  action  of  other  and  quite  distinct  agen- 
cies which  have  been  so  adroitly  affiliated  upon  it  as  to 
create  the  impression  that  they  have  grown  out  of  it. 
In  the  case  of  morality,  we  have  seen  how  far  this  im- 
pression is  from  being  true.  The  affiliation  has  been 
accomplished  as  a  protection  to  systems  of  belief  which 
would  otherwise  have  lost  their  hold  upon  mankind." 

And  speaking  still  more  positively: 

"Whatever  may  be  the  benefits  which  supernatural  be- 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS         169 

liefs  have  conferred  and  are  to  confer  upon  man  in  a 
future  state  of  existence,  they  have  not  only  conferred 
none  upon  him  in  the  present  state,  but  have  demonstra- 
bly  impeded  his  upward  course  throughout  his  entire 
career." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  an  evident  contra- 
diction between  this  positively  asserted  position  and 
Ward's  contention,  advanced  in  "Pure  Sociology,"  that 
"religion  must  have  been  primarily  an  advantageous  so- 
cial structure,  otherwise  it  could  not  have  come  into 
existence/' 

Progress  consists  in  breaking  down  the  limits  of  en- 
vironment by  inventions  of  improved  means  of  commu- 
nication and  subsistence,  or,  as  Marx  would  state  it,  in 
the  improvement  of  the  means  of  production  and  ex- 
change. 

ACTION 

We  now  come  to  another  question:  If  progress  is  the 
source  of  increasing  happiness,  what  is  the  source  of 
progress?  To  this  question  Ward  answers,  "action." 
It  is  obvious,  however,  that  not  all  action  leads  to  pro- 
gress. The  particular  kind  of  action  that  leads  to  pro- 
gress is  dynamical  action;  statical  actions  are  not  pro- 
ductive of  progress.  The  difference  betw-een  dynamical 
actions  and  statical  actions  is  that  statical  actions  are 
natural,  while  dynamical  actions  are  artificial.  The  ac- 
tion of  eating  to  satisfy  hunger  is  natural,  but  it  has  no 
tendency  to  progress.  Artificial  actions,  such  as  the  de- 
velopment of  wild  grasses  into  cereals  and  producing 
these  in  crops  to  increase  the  food  supply,  are  pro- 
gressive or  dynamical.  The  greater  part  of  Ward's  study 


170  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

of  this  question  is  devoted  to  showing  that  dynamic  ac- 
tions are  all  based  on  the  indirect  or  intellectual  method 
of  effort.  "Dynamical  actions  are  distinguished  from 
statical  actions  in  proceeding  according  to  the  indirect  or 
intellectual  method  of  conation  (effort)  instead  of  the 
direct,  or  physical  method."  The  exposition  of  what 
Ward  calls  "the  indirect  method"  occupies  a  large  and 
prominent  place  in  all  of  his  work.  It  is  much  too  im- 
portant a  question  to  be  disposed  of  in  this  section  and 
will,  therefore,  be  made  the  subject  of  the  next  chapter. 
"Dynamic  actions  may  be  subdivided  into  two  groups, 
according  as  they  are  performed  by  individuals  or  small 
groups,  or  by  society  at  large."  Ward  explains  that 
thus  far  nearly  all  dynamic  actions  have  been  performed 
either  by  individuals  or  small  groups  of  individuals. 
This  is  because  the  inventive  factulty  which  operates  to 
produce  dynamic  action  requires  a  considerable  develop- 
ment of  independence  in  its  exercise,  whereas  when 
many  men  get  together  in  bodies  of  any  size  to  decide 
upon  any  action,  there  frequently  results  a  degree  of 
confusion  incompatible  with  the  adoption  of  any  ra- 
tional scheme.  This  leads  Ward  to  make  the  following 
criticism  of  deliberative  bodies: 

"Deliberative  bodies  rarely  enact  any  measures  which 
involve  the  application  of  the  indirect  method.  If  indi- 
vidual members  who  have  worked  such  schemes  out  by 
themselves  propose  them  in  such  bodies,  the  confusion 
of  discordant  minds,  coupled  with  the  usual  preponder- 
ance of  inferior  ones,  almost  always  defeats  their  adop- 
tion." > 

This  is  followed  by  several  suggestions  as  to  how 
"true'''  deliberative  bodies  may  act  dynamically  in  the 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS 

future.  The  most  potent  of  these  suggestions  is,  that 
inasmuch  as  in  all  democratic  societies  the  actions  of 
legislative  bodies  are  controlled  by  constituencies,  and 
can  only  move  as  the  constituencies  allow  them  to  move, 
the  only  method  of  making  scientific  legislation  possible 
is  the  dissemination  of  scientific  knowledge  throughout 
the  constituencies. 

The  previous  absence  of  scientific  knowledge,  espe- 
cially scientific  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  social 
forces,  is  responsible  for  the  fact  that  almost  all  acts 
performed  so  far  by  the  social  organism  have  belonged 
to  the  static  class.  The  hope  of  the  future  lies  in  the 
scientific  education  of  the  mass  of  men  and  the  con- 
ducting of  legislative  bodies  on  a  basis  similar  to  that 
which  obtains  in  scientific  bodies  and  with  the  complete 
absence  of  the  partisan  spirit  which  is  typical  of  party 
politics. 

OPINION 

We  now  see  that  happiness  is  the  child  of  progress; 
progress  the  child  of  action,  and  the  query  arises,  Where 
shall  we  look  for  the  parent  of  action?  Ward  finds  the- 
answer  in  "opinion."  The  chapter  in  which  opinion 
is  considered  as  a  link  in  this  chain  is  especially  luminous 
and  we  recommend  the  reader  to  make  himself  ac- 
quainted with  it  at  the  earliest  opportunity.  "The  value 
of  human  action,"  says  Ward,  "will  chiefly  depend  upon 
two  qualities  residing  in  human  opinions.  First,  their 
correctness ;  second,  the  importance  of  their  subject-mat- 
ter." Ward  argues  with  great  force  that  what  is  needed 
is  not  unity  of  opinion  but  correctness  of  opinion.  The 
important  thing  about  an  opinion  is  not  whether  it  is 


172  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

generally  accepted,  but  whether  it  is  true.  A  generally 
accepted  error  has  more  than  once  in  human  history  re- 
sulted in  incalculable  disaster.  The  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  women  who  were  burned  or  drowned  because 
of  the  general  belief  in  witchcraft  and  the  general  ac- 
ceptance of  the  biblical  injunction  "thou  shalt  not  suffer 
a  witch  to  live"  is  a  case  in  point.  Equally  fallacious 
is  the  opposite  idea  that  there  is  something  to  be  dreaded 
in  complete^  harmony  of  opinfon  and  that  mere  "differ- 
ence of  opinion  exerts  a  wholesome  influence  upon  intel- 
lectual and  social  progress  and  that  unity  of  views  upon 
the  chief  topics  of  any  age  would  result  in  mental  stag- 
nation and  social  degeneration."  Many  instances  of  set- 
tled unity  of  opinion  are  cited: 

"The  heliocentric  theory  was  long  the  battlefield  of 
opinions  even  by  astronomers  themselves.  Opinion  re- 
specting it  has  now  become  so  far  settled  that  there  is 
no  educated  person,  not  even  in  orders,  who  honestly 
questions  it ;  and  a  modern  work,  claiming  seriously  to 
challenge  its  truth,  was  simply  an  object  of  general  ridi- 
cule. There  is  little  more  chance  for  the  truth  which 
Galileo  recanted  before  a  grave  consistory  of  learned 
prelates  ever  to  be  again  seriously  questioned  than  there 
is  that  it  will  some  time  be  denied  that  a  right  line  join- 
ing two  points  is  the  shortest  distance  between  them." 

And  in  geology: 

"There  remains  no  one  to  gainsay  the  assertion  that 
stratified  deposits  found  upon  high  mountains  were  once 
at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  where  they  were  formed.  No 
one  any  longer  disputes  that  the  fossils  found  in  such 
positions  were  once  living  creatures  inhabiting  the  sea. 
And,  while  no  one  can  say  with  any  degree  of  definite- 
ness  how  long  ago  these  fossils  lived,  scarcely  a  culti- 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS        173 

vated  man  can  be  found  who  honestly  doubts  that  it 
must  have  been,  in  most  cases,  very  much  more  than  the 
long-claimed  six  thousand  years." 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

"We  might  go  in  like  manner  through  all  the  estab- 
lished sciences:  physics,  with  its  law  of  gravitation; 
chemistry,  with  its  laws  of  proportions  and  elective  af- 
finities; biology,  with  its  law  of  deterioration  through 
interbreeding — all  now  settled,  though  once  disputed." 

Ward  asks  if  any  of  these  settled  propositions  in  sci- 
ence can  be  shown  to  have  any  tendency  to  produce  "in- 
tellectual stagnation  or  social  degeneracy?" 

He  remarks  that  it  is  an  obvious  fact  that  most  actual 
differences  of  opinion  are  wholly  unnecessary,  the  data 
for  their  complete  settlement  being  in  existence.  Men 
hold  incorrect  opinions  all  through  life,  opinions  which 
influence  their  actions  against  the  interests  of  progress 
when  the  correct  opinions  have  been  in  existence  and 
easily  accessible  for  years  and,  in  some  cases,  for  centur- 
ies. The  individual  is  not  to  blame;  it  is  a  defect  of  the 
social  organism  which  should  have  prevented  it  by  the 
process  of  education  and  which  would  have  been  a  great 
gainer  thereby.  It  is  indeed  pitiful  that  men  and  women 
should  still  be  born  into  the  world  and  in  their  infancy 
inoculated  with  ideas  which  scientific  men  have  known 
for  a  certainty  for  decades  or  centuries  to  be  nothing 
better  than  so  many  absolute  lies.  In  view  of  this  Ward 
writes  a  brief  paragraph  which  deserves  close  attention: 

"In  the  present  state  of  society,  a  small  class  of  ad- 
vanced minds  simply  look  on  and  smile  at  the  mad  surge 
of  bitter  polemic  that  engrosses  the  great  mass.  To  them 
the  truth  has  been  long  patent,  and  may  have  become 
trite.  Powerless  to  extend  it  to  the  rest  of  the  world 


174  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

they  are  tempted  to  regard  the  'common  herd'  as  they 
would  regard  a  drove  of  cattle  on  their  way  to  the 
slaughter-house." 

Following  this  is  an  exceedingly  valuable  discussion 
of  the  nature  of  truth,  the  origin  of  opinion,  etc.  It 
is  clearly  shown,  as  is  of  course  now  understood  by  all 
the  well  informed,  that  opinions  are  not  produced  by  the 
will,  that  men  cannot  believe  things  because  they  wish 
or  will  to  do  so;  nor  can  they  recant  opinions  they  hold, 
in  obedience  to  their  own  wills  or  the  imposed  wills  of 
others.  Yet,  this  idea  generally  prevailed  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  "Imagine,"  says  Ward,  "a  Roman  Catholic  zealot 
philosophizing  with  himself  whether  he  could,  by  an 
act  of  his  will,  accept  the  heresies  of  Martin  Luther! 
!And  yet  nothing  was  more  clearly  established  in  his 
mind  than  that  those  heretics  could  return  to  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Universal  Church  the  moment  they  should 
will  to  do  so." 

We  shall  now  pass  directly  to  Ward's  treatment  of 
such  ideas  or  opinions  as  lead  to  dynamic  or  progressive 
action.  These  are  called  dynamic  ideas  or  dynamic  opin- 
ions. They  belong  chiefly  to  four  great  classes,  which 
follow  in  their  classification  the  order  of  the  sciences  pre- 
sented by  Comte  and  Spencer  and  given  in  the  earlier 
chapters  of  this  book.  These  four  classes  of  ideas  are: 

1.  Cosmological  ideas. 

2.  Biological  ideas. 

3.  Anthropological  ideas. 

4.  Sociological  ideas. 

For  lack  of  space,  we  shall  here  confine  ourselves  to 
the  first  order  given  in  the  above  classification. 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS        175 

The  effect  of  opinions  about  the  material  universe  in 
producing  progressive  or  non-progressive  actions  in  the 
individuals  who  entertain  them  is  argued  by  Ward  as 
follows : 

"First,  in  order  to  live  in  the  most  advantageous  way, 
sound  views  of  the  material  universe  must  prevail.  So 
long  as  man's  conceptions  of  the  universe  are  erroneous, 
he  will  pursue  a  wayward  if  not  a  downward  course.  If 
they  are  too  narrow,  and  he  believes  that  all  existing 
things  are  within  the  range  of  his  vision,  his  conduct 
will  be  correspondingly  narrowed.  If  he  believes  the 
world  of  short  duration,  both  in  the  past  and  in  the  fu- 
turej  this  too  will  dwarf  all  his  undertakings,  and  make 
an  end  of  progress.  If  he  regards  nature  as  consisting 
of  a  multitude  of  animated  powers  impending  over  him, 
he  will  waste  all  his  energies  in  seeking  to  propitiate 
these  powers.  If  he  deems  them  evil,  terror  will  demor- 
alize him  and  make  life  a  burden.  If  he  conceives  the 
universe  to  be  watched  over  by  beneficent  powers,  he 
will  be  apt  to  resign  all  initiative  effort  to  them,  and 
relapse  into  a  condition  of  complete  stagnation." 

Those  who  hold  that  there  is  no  relation  between  the 
measurement  of  the  sun,  and  the  vast  distances  between 
the  planets,  and  human  conduct  in  society  are  answered 
thus: 

"Proper  conceptions  of  the  relative  magnitude  of  the 
sun  and  earth  help  immensely  to  tone  down  human  ar- 
rogance and  to  make  men  behave  properly.  Some  may 
smile  at  such  a  statement,  but  they  need  only  to  remem- 
ber that,  down  to  the  time  when  this  and  other  kindred 
truths  were  forced  by  science  upon  the  world,  the  most 
moral  and  enlightened  men  in  the  most  advanced  por- 
tion of  the  earth  were  decreeing  the  torture  and  execu- 
tion of  their  fellow-men  for  disbelief  in  certain  doctrinal 
tenets  not  possessing  the  least  intrinsic  merit ;  and  scarce- 


176  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ly  any  one  now  doubts  that  the  immense  liberalization 
of  the  world  which  has  taken  place  during  the  last  three 
centuries  has  been  chiefly  due  to  the  expansion  of  men's 
views  rendered  possible  by  the  discoveries  of  science." 

Elsewhere  in  his  work  Ward  develops  at  length,  that 
men's  opinions  as  to  the  attitude  of  the  universe  toward 
mankind  are  vital  in  social  progress.  In  this  regard 
science  has  shown  that  the  universe  is  not  for  us,  and 
that  therefore  we  cannot  depend  upon  its  doing  what 
we  must  needs  do  for  ourselves.  Neither  is  it  against 
us,  so  that  we  need  not  despair  that  our  efforts  will  be 
thwarted.  The  truth  is  that  the  universe  occupies  a 
purely  neutral  position.  It  neither  knows  nor  cares  any- 
thing about  the  human  race.  It  has  no  intelligence;  it 
constitutes  simply  a  vast  mass  of  raw  material,  so  that 
whether  men  grope  in  benighted  savagery,  or  realize  the 
loftiest  millenial  dreams  of  civilization,  depends  entirely 
upon  their  own  efforts.  This  opinion,  which  is  eminently 
scientific,  is  a  clear  example  of  what  constitutes  a  dynamic 
opinion,  inasmuch  as  its  acceptance  cannot  but  lead  the 
man  accepting  it  to  wage  a  fearless  struggle  with  nature 
in  that  increasing  conquest  of  its  forces  and  that  cumu- 
lative appropriation  of  its  materials  which  constitute  the 
very  essences  of  progress. 

KNOWLEDGE 

"In  the  four  preceding  chapters,"  Ward  says,  "we 
have  seen  that  human  progress,  measured  by  the  degree 
of  happiness  conferred,  has  been  accomplished  altogether 
by  appropriate  human  actions,  dictated  by  rational 
thoughts."  The  next  problem  is  to  find  the  basis  of  ra- 
tional thoughts,  or  as  they  are  called  in  the  classification, 
dynamic  opinions.  Ward's  answer  is  "knowledge." 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS        177 

In  the  chapter  devoted  to  this  fifth  link  in  the  chain, 
there  is  an  exceedingly  interesting  and  valuable  discus- 
sion of  the  nature  of  intellect  and  intelligence.  We  can 
only  give  a  bare  outline  here,  and  once  more  the  reader 
is  urged  to  acquaint  himself  with  the  full  treatment  in 
the  original.  '  The  intellect  is  mental  power ;  knowledge 
is  the  material  upon  which  this  power  is  exerted,  and 
the  compound  result  of  the  combination  is  intelligence. 
The  great  need  of  society  is  an  increase  of  intelligence 
The  problem  is  to  find  out  how  this  can  be  accomplished. 
Inasmuch  as  intelligence  is  a  compound,  resulting  from 
an  admixture  of  intellect  and  knowledge,  the  question 
arises  as  to  which  of  these  two  things  we  stand  most  in 
need  in  order  to  increase  our  supply  of  the  derived  pro- 
duct. Have  we  sufficient  intellectual  capacity  and  a 
lack  of  knowledge?  or  have  we  a  surplus  of  knowledge 
with  a  lack  of  intellectual  power?  According  to  the  an- 
swers we  give  to  these  questions,  our  energies  will  be 
directed  in  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  channels.  In 
deciding  this  question,  we  must  find  which  is  the  ele- 
ment lacking  and  what  are  the  possibilities  of  supply- 
ing the  need.  Ward  decides  that  we  do  not  lack  on  the 
side  of  intellect;  that  the  intellectual  capacity  of  the 
mass  of  men  in  the  modern  world  is  more  than  enough 
for  any  demands  of  the  present  or  the  immediate  fu- 
ture. While  this  may  not  apply  to  the  lower  races  still 
in  existence,  it  is  certainly  the  case  with  the  peoples  of 
Europe  and  America: 

"The  intellect  of  Western  Europe  is  still  capable  of 
easily  digesting  and  thoroughly  assimilating  a  vast 
amount  of  natural  truth  in  addition  to  that  now  pos- 
sessed by  it;  and  all  the  parts  of  it  and  of  America,  be- 


178  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

tween  which  the  greatest  inequality  in  this  respect  now 
exists,  are  capable  of  holding  it  all  alike,  and  the  pro- 
posed increase  besides.  The  chief  differences  in  nations, 
in  local  areas,  in  communities,  and  in  ipdividuals,  is  in 
what  they  know,  and  not  in  what  they  are  capable  of 
knowing.  It  is  intelligence  which  so  greatly  varies,  and 
not  intellect;  the  deficiencies  of  backward  regions  are 
deficiencies  in  knowledge;  the  chief  errors  of  the  world 
as  well  as  its  chief  evils,  have  a  common  origin  in  ig- 
norance." 

This  explains  the  wide  difference  of  intelligence  by 
holding,  after  the  manner  of  Helvetius,  that  intellect 
is  equal  and  the  difference  in  intelligence  is  due  to  some 
intellects  being  supplied  with  larger  amounts  of  knowl- 
edge than  others.  The  degree  of  intelligence  in  cities 
"is  well  known  to  be  greatly  superior  to  that  in  the 
rural  districts.  This  is  by  no  means  due  to  the  superior 
capacity  of  city  populations.  If  there  is  any  difference 
in  this  respect,  it  is  probably  the  reverse  of  this.  The 
country  boy  removed  to  the  city  soon  becomes  a  city 
boy."1  The  importance  of  cities  to  intelligence  is  due  to 
"the  atmosphere  of  conversation,  news,  reading,  and 
thinking  of  a  metropolis." 

"From  the  plains  of  Nebraska,  where  the  aspiring 
youth  can  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  obtain  the  rudi- 
ments of  an  education,  to  the  great  centers  of  life  in 
London,  Berlin,  or  Paris,  where  every  night  large  crowds 
assemble  to  listen  to  technical  lectures  by  the  masters  of 
science,  there  exist  all  degrees  of  difference  in  the  mere 
opportunity  which  equal  intellects  enjoy  for  acquiring 
knowledge  and  enhancing  intelligence." 

The  conclusion  from  this  is  that  all  efforts  in  the 
direction  of  increasing  intellectual  capacity  are  largely 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS        179 

superfluous.  It  is  already  present  in  sufficient  generality 
and  in  sufficient  degree  for  all  present  practical  pur- 
poses. Ward  therefore  justly  demands  why  energy 
should  be  expended  in  the  direction  of  increasing  intel- 
lect, of  which  we  have  sufficient,  instead  of  in  the  di- 
rection of  increasing,  and  especially  distributing,  knowl- 
edge, which  is  the  only  element  lacking  for  the  increase 
of  intelligence.  This  point  is  forcibly  made  and  very 
clearly  illustrated  in  the  following: 

"Since  intelligence  is  the  real  end  in  view,  which  con- 
sists only  in  a  proper  combination  of  the  tw.o,  all  increase 
in  the  one  in  excess  of  the  other  is  without  result.  But 
we  have  shown  that  the  former  is  already  largely  in  ex- 
cess. Why,  then,  insist  upon  adding  to  this,  to  the 
neglect  of  the  other?  If,  in  seeking  to  obtain  a  larger 
amount  of  a  compound  chemical,  composed  of  two  in- 
gredients which  combine  in  definite  proportions,  an  ex- 
cess of  either  one  be  constantly  added  without  adding 
any  of  the  other,  the  amount  of  the  compound 
desired  will  never  be  increased.  The  jar  may  be  filled 
with  the  uncombined  and  valueless  mixture,  but  it  repre- 
sents nothing.  Thus  it  is  with  the  psychic  progress  of 
mankind.  The  only  increment  which  counts  is  the  in- 
crement of  intelligence,  represented  by  the  maximum 
condition  of -the  lesser  of  its  two  components." 

It  is  indeed  fortunate  that  our  problem  turns  out  thus. 
For,  in  this  event,  its  solution  is  within  reach  and  is, 
in  a  sense,  comparatively  easy.  Indeed,  if  it  were  not 
that  the  economic  interests  of  certain  social  classes 
stand  like  lions  in  the  path,  it  would  be  no  task  at  all. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  clear  that  if  the  thing 
lacking  in  the  combination  were  intellectual  capacity, 
any  immediate  solution  of  the  problem  would  be  out  of 


180  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

the  question.  As  Ward  points  out  intellectual  capacity 
can  only  be  increased  by  changes  in  the  mass  and  struc- 
ture of  the  brain,  and  this  is  a  biological  problem  and 
a  process  requiring  immense  periods  of  time.  The 
change  in  this  regard  during  all  historic  time  is  so 
minute  as  to  be  practically  imperceptible  and  a  negligible 
quantity. 

"There  is  a  certain  heroism  in  the  fearless  manner  in 
which  the  human  race  attacks  the  most  difficult  prob- 
lems. A  typical  instance  of  this  kind  is  the  attempt  to 
develop  the  human  intellect.  The  zeal  with  which  this 
problem  has  been  attacked  by  'educationalists/  as  well 
as  the  results,  reminds  us  strongly  of  Don  Quixote's 
war  upon  the  windmills.  Wholly  ignorant  of  the  great 
laws  of  heredity  which  suggest  a  real  method,  hostile 
for- the  most  part  to  the  theory  of  natural  development, 
by  whose  contemplation  alone  the  true  difficulties  of  the 
task  can  be  duly  appreciated,  these  zealous  reformers 
continue  to  beat  the  air  and  the  sea,  and  fancy  they  are 
really  subduing  the  winds  and  the  waves." 

Ward  shows  that  there  are  means  by  which  intellect- 
ual power  can  be  increased,  though  this  is  not  the  im- 
perative need.  Man  is  far  better  able  to  improve  the 
breeds  of  stock  or  domestic  animals  than  to  improve 
himself,  inasmuch  as  any  suggestion  to  conduct  human 
breeding  on  any  such  scientific  principles  as  are  applied 
in*  stock  breeding  is  immediately  confronted  with  serious 
difficulties.  Apart  from  this,  the  supplying  of  the  in- 
tellect with  the  proper  materials  of  knowledge  to  enable 
it  to  work  at  its  highest  capacity,  is  bound,  in  the  course 
of  time,  to  develop  still  higher  powers.  The  lash  is  ap- 
plied justly  to  our  institutions  of  learning,  where  it  is 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS         181 

imagined   that   intellectual   power   can   be   obtained  by 
mere  intellectual  gymnastics. 

"The  system  hitherto  chiefly  relied  upon  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mind  may  be  appropriately  called  'in- 
tellectual gymnastic.'  It  consists  in  exercising  the  intel- 
lect on  sham  problems  in  the  same  manner  that  acro- 
bats cultivate  their  bodily  agility.  Logical  tournaments 
and  mock  polemics  are  regularly  conducted,  and  various 
forms  of  heated  'wrangling'  are  made  regular  exercises 
in  the  highest  institutions  of  learning.  Real  objects  are 
avoided  as  unnecessary,  and  as  only  belonging  to  serious 
life.  It  is  supposed  that  in  this  way  the  plastic  mind  of 
youth  will  be  'drawn  out'  and  made  something  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  it  would  otherwise  be.  Too  frequently 
it  is  worn  out  instead,  and  thus  unfitted  entirely  for  the 
active  duties  of  later  years.  That  some  effect  is  thus 
produced,  not  indeed  appreciable  (unless  by  the  breaking 
down  of  the  mind),  during  the  life  of  the  individual, 
but  upon  posterity  after  a  series  of  generations,  is  prob- 
ably true,  though  it  is  apt  to  show  itself  in  the  form  of 
degeneracy  or  effeminacy — a  fondness  for  the  forms  and 
shadows  of  things  accompanied  by  a  disregard  of  the 
substance." 

The  whole  discussion  is  presented  in  the  following 
summary,  which  deserves  to  be  very  carefully  pondered: 

"1.  That  the  degree  of  intellectual  capacity,  as  al- 
ready spontaneously  developed,  is  amply  sufficient,  in 
the  present  civilized  races,  to  establish  and  conduct  a 
thoroughly  organized  social  system. 

"2.  That  all  attempts  artificially  to  accelerate  this  de- 
velopment must  be  attended  with  great  difficulties,  and, 
in  so  far  as  successful,  must  occupy  prolonged  if  not 
secular  periods. 

"3.  That  the  only  two  methods  by  which  this  can  be 
accomplished  are,  first,  artificial  selection,  or  the  scien- 


182  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

tific  propagation  of  human  beings — a  method  confronted 
by  great  practical  obstacles ;  or,  second,  rational  change 
of  environment,  consisting  in  the  supply  of  the  intellect 
with  more  and  better  legitimate  materials  to  work  upon, 
i.  e.,  increase  of  knowledge. 

"4.  That  the  amount  of  useful  knowledge  possessed 
by  the  average  mind  is  far  below  its  intellectual  capacity, 
thus  keeping  the  degree  of  intelligence  correspondingly 
below  what  it  might  be. 

"5.  That  the  actual  amount  of  such  knowledge  orig- 
inated by  man,  though  doubtless  still  below  his  ability 
to  utilize  it,  is  sufficient,  if  equally  distributed,  to  elevate 
him  to  a  relatively  high  position,  and  to  awaken  society 
to  complete  consciousness. 

"6.  That  the  origination  of  knowledge,  though  diffi- 
cult and  slow,  is  easier  and  more  rapid  than  any  possible 
increase  of  intellect  can  be,  and  may  be  easily  made  to 
keep  pace  with  the  latter  in  the  future. 

"7.  That  more  immediately  important  than  any  of  the 
other  desiderata  named,  as  well  as  far  more  easy  of  ac- 
complishment, is  the  thorough  distribution  of  the  great 
body  of  valuable  knowledge  already  extant." 

We  shall,  for  lack  of  space,  pass  Ward's  theory  of 
ethical  opinions  and  ethical  knowledge  and  proceed  di- 
rectly to  dynamic  knowledge.  As  it  is  dynamic  action 
alone  which  makes  for  progress  and  dynamic  opinion 
alone  which  kads  to  progressive  action,"  so  it  is  dynamic 
knowledge  alone  which  leads  to  progressive  opinion.  All 
dynamic  knowledge  is  of  the  scientific  order,  though  it 
does  not  follow  that  all  scientific  knowledge  is  neces- 
sarily dynamic.  It  is  resolved  into  two  categories;  sci- 
entific knowledge  which  is  potentially  dynamic,  and  sci- 
entific knowledge  which  is  actually  dynamic.  Inasmuch 
as  it  is  impossible  to  foresee  whether  a  scientific  dis- 
covery may  be  dynamic  in  its  results,  it  becomes  neces- 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS        183 

sary  to  pursue  scientific  truth  in  the  first  place  for  its 
own  sake.  This  is  why  scientific  pursuits  attract  only 
the  highest  types  of  minds,  offering  as  they  do  no  cer- 
tain immediate  material  results.  Ward  illustrates  this 
by  Galvani's  experiments  with  frog's  legs,  which  seemed 
at  the  time  of  no  value,  but  which  proved  to  be  the  fun- 
damental principle  underlying  the  invention  of  the  elec- 
tric telegraph. 

Actual  dynamic  knowledge  is  all  knowledge  of  this 
character  which  led  directly  to  social  progress  by  en- 
abling men  to  utilize  the  materials  and  forces  of  nature 
to  their  own  advantage.  Such  knowledge  as  the  discov- 
ery of  coal  and  steam  and  electricity  and  the  knowledge 
which  led  to  the  various  arts  which  constitute  the  chief 
body  of  modern  civilization.  Knowledge  that  is  po- 
tentially dynamic,  includes  knowledge  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  sun,  fixed  stars  and  nebulae,  the  immense 
distances  of  space  in  astronomy  and  physics;  the 
knowledge  of  the  evolutionary  origin  of  man  in  biology, 
and  all  such  knowledge  as  tends  to  enlarge  the  human 
outlook,  and  instruct  the  human  mind,  thus  raising  it  to 
a  higher  plane  of  thought  and  action.  While  knowl- 
edge of  this  order  is  regarded  as  chiefly  potential,  inas- 
much as  it  has  no  immediate  progressive  results,  it  is 
also  largely  dynamic. 

Toward  the  close  of  this  section  Ward  has  an  inter- 
esting treatment  of  the  distribution  of  knowledge,  a 
subject  still  further  elaborated  in  the  next  section.  "It 
would  be  regarded  as  a  truism,"  says  Ward,  "if  not 
actual  tautology  to  say  that  knowledge,  to  exert  its 
power,  must  be  possessed  by  the  mind.  And  yet  no  be- 


184  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

lief  is  more  prevalent,  tacit  if  not  avowed,  than  that 
knowledge  in  possession  of  a  few  individuals  sufficiently 
avails  for  all."  Ward  points  out  the  fallacy  in  this  no- 
tion and  that  "it  is  no  more  possible  for  one  person  to 
do  another's  knowing,  than  it  would  be  to  do  his  eating 
and  drinking.  A  man's  knowledge  may  make  him  a 
philanthropist,  but  it  cannot  prevent  another's  ignorance 
from  making  him  a  criminal.  The  knowledge  which 
makes  one  class  moral  and  upright  citizens,  exerts  no 
influence  to  reduce  the  immorality  of  the  class  which  is 
without  it."  Then  comes  an  argument  which  will  spe- 
cially interest  the  readers  of  this  book;  dealing  with 
the  question  of  existing  social  inequalities,  Ward  says: 

"Those  who  indulge  the  dream  of  a  golden  age  of 
altruistic  morality,  when  all  this  shall  be  changed,  and 
men  shall  pursue  the  welfare  of  others  instead  of  their 
own,  are  destined  to  disappointment,  and  deserve  to  be 
disappointed.  Whatever  improvement  is  made  in  the 
present  system  must  be  brought  about  by  the  develop- 
ment of  the  means  of  equal  self-protection,  and  not  to 
any  marked  degree  by  the  growth  of  altruism/' 

Ward  argues  that  the  advantage  of  the  capitalist  over 
the  laborer  is  due  to  superior  intelligence,  and  that  the 
inequality  in  the  distribution  of  knowledge  which  gives 
the  capitalist  this  superior  intelligence  works  positive 
injury  in  allowing  "a  grasping  egotism  to  accomplish  its 
purpose  at  the  expense  of  innocence  and  honesty."  The 
conclusion  is  that  this  disadvantage  on  the  part  of  subject 
classes  can  only  be  abolished  by  their  acquisition  of  the 
wider  knowledge,  which,  united  with  their  already  suffi- 
cient intellectual  capacity,  would  produce  a  self-protect- 
ing intelligence.  It  is  the  idea  often  expressed  that 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS        185 

things  will  be  different  when  "Jack  is  as  good  as  his 
master." 

EDUCATION 

To  recapitulate  the  steps  in  Ward's  system:  We  have 
seen  that  happiness  is  the  result  of  progress;  progress 
the  result  of  action ;  action  the  result  of  opinion ;  opinion 
the  result  of  knowledge.  It  now  remains  to  ascertain 
the  direct  means  to  knowledge.  Ward  answers  this 
with  the  word  "education."  This  completes  the  series, 
and  brings  us  to  what  he  calls  the  initial  means  to  the 
ultimate  goal.  We  wish  to  say  at  this  point,  that  if 
any  treatise  on  education  has  been  written  which  is 
comparable  in  value  with  this  chapter  by  Ward,  it  has 
never  come  within  our  notice.  We  wish  also  to  guard 
the  reader  against  the  assumption  that  the  perusal  of 
these  brief  condensations  conveys  any  adequate  notion 
of  the  immense  amount  of  important  information  pre- 
sented to  the  reader  in  the  book  from  which  they  are 
taken. 

The  word  education  is  used  in  this  connection,  not 
because  it  is  adequate,  but  because  it  is  the  least  objec- 
tionable of  the  terms  available.  The  word,  none  the  less, 
is  eminently  unsatisfactory,  both  on  the  ground  of  its 
etymology  and  its  popular  meaning.  The  etymology 
of  the  word  shows  that  it  means  a  "drawing  out"  of  the 
mind,  and  this  notion,  and  some  others  equally  value- 
less, have  been  so  widely  associated  with  the  term  in 
the  popular  mind  that  the  word  gives  no  sufficient  in- 
dication of  the  true  function  of  education.  The  editor 
of  the  "Popular  Science  Monthly"  is  quoted  as  saying 
that  "education  is  a  leading  out  of  the  faculties."  Dr. 


186  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

T.  Clifford  Allbutt  is  quoted  as  defining  education  thus: 
"The  true  purpose  of  education  is,  first  of  all,  to  teach 
discipline — the  discipline  of  the  body  and  the  higher  dis- 
cipline of  the  mind  and  heart."1  A  learned  article  in  the 
London  "Times"  gave  the  following:  "Education,  which 
might  once  have  been  defined  as  an  endeavor  to  expand 
the  intellect  by  the  introduction  of  mechanically  com- 
pressed facts  should  now  be  defined  as  an  endeavor  fa- 
vorably to  influence  a  vital  process."  These  definitions 
and  others  are  given  to  show  that  all  current  definitions 
fail  to  take  note  of  the  real  function  of  education,  as 
conceived  by  Ward.  From  the  variety  of  definitions  in 
existence,  Ward  compiles  a  catalogue,  showing  the  dif- 
ferent concepts  of  education,  including  his  own,  which 
is  given  as  the  last  of  the  list.  They  are  as  follows : 

1.  Education  of  experience. 

2.  Education  of  discipline. 

3.  Education  of  culture. 

4.  Education  of  research. 

5.  Education  of  information. 

All  these  are  reviewed  at  length.  It  is  argued  that 
while  the  education  of  experience  may  be  the  only  one 
possible  on  some  matters,  there  are  others  in  which  it 
can  be  dispensed  with.  That  at  best  it  is  an  expensive 
method  and  that  other  methods  of  much  less  cost  should 
take  its  place.  Ward's  criticism  might  be  summed  up 
in  the  proverb:  "Experience  keeps  a  dear  school  but 
fools  will  learn  in  no  other." 

Education  of  discipline  is  dismissed  with  the  conten- 
tion that  it  can  be  best  secured  by  "the  organized  recep- 
tion of  the  most  important  knowledge,"  and  this  is  the 
method  of  No,  5 — the  "education  of  information." 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS         187 

The  education  of  culture,  relating  as  it  does  to  ar- 
tistic rather  than  practical  knowledge,  is  admitted  to  have 
its  place  after  the.  essential  kind  of  education — the  edu- 
cation of  information — has  been  obtained. 

The 'education  of  research  has  for  its  chief  fallacy, 
the  groundless  assumption  that  truth,  once  discovered, 
will  naturally  diffuse  itself.  Its  advocates,  therefore, 
miss  the  real  point  of  education,  which  is  the  diffusion 
of  truth  already  ascertained.  It  is  also  shown  elsewhere 
in  the  chapter,  that  much  time  is  lost  and  much  energy 
is  uselessly  expended  in  the  field  of  research,  because 
truths  that  have  already  been  discovered  have  not  been 
generally  disseminated,  and  others,  unacquainted  with 
their  discovery,  have  expended  time  and  energy  in  the 
rediscovery  of  truths  already  known.  This  brings  us 
to  the  fifth  conception,  which  is  Ward's  own. 

Education  of  information  is  defined  as  "a  system  for 
extending  to  all  the  members  of  society  such  of  the  ex- 
tant knowledge  of  the  world  as  may  be  deemed  most 
important." 

Ward  proceeds  upon  the  principle  of  devoting  all  at- 
tention to  the  contents  of  the  mind  and  none  whatever 
to  its  capacity.  This  attitude  flows  from  his  belief, 
which  we  consider  extremely  well  founded,  that  ca- 
pacity is  about  equal  in  all  the  normal  members  of  civil- 
ized countries.  He  anticipates  the  objection  that  this 
may  be  regarded  as  a  system  of  cramming.  If  by  cram- 
ming is  meant  the  acquisition  of  large  quantities  of 
knowledge,  it  is  not  to  be  condemned.  That  which  is  to  be 
condemned  is  "the  memorizing  of  long  lists  of  meaning- 
less names,  and  the  taxing  of  the  wits  in  the  solution 
of  valueless  puzzles." 


188  AN    INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

"The  object  is  to  fill  the  mind  with  truth:  not  to 
cram  it,  nor  to  force  it,  but  to  store  it  in  such  a  system- 
atic way  with  knowledge  that  it  may  make  use  of  its 
stores  in  the  production  of  rational  thought.  The  idea 
that  the  mind  breaks  down  because  crammed  beyond  its 
capacity  with  knowledge  is  a  gross  misconception  of  the 
primary  principles  of  psychology.  It  is  based  on  some 
such  crude  assumption  as  that  the  brain  is  a  hollow 
sphere  and  that  thoughts  are  material  gases  introduced 
into  it.  The  fact  is  that  the  lowest  town  gossip  has  a 
larger  number  of  items  of  information  stored  away  in 
his  brain  than  Humboldt  ever  had.  It  requires  no 
greater  effort  to  know  something  important  than  some- 
thing unimportant.  It  is  not  the  quantity  of  knowledge 
but  the  quality,  not  the  number  of  truths  but  their  value, 
which  should  be  chiefly  considered,  and  the  ability  of  the 
mind  to  acquire  them  forms  no  part  of  the  problem." 

<>  Ward  is  decidedly  on  the  side  of  state  education,  as 
against  private  education,  as  he  is,  indeed,  favorably 
disposed  to  all  forms  of  what  has  been  called  state  social- 
ism, and  he  takes  considerable  pains  to  show  that  in 
the  matter  of  railroads,  telegraphs,  etc.,  state  manage- 
ment has  been  uniformly  superior  to  private  enterprise. 
Of  private  education,  he  has  the  following  trenchant 
and  ironical  criticism: 

"In  private  education  there  is  truly  'no  such  word  as 
fail.'  For  a  pupil  to  fail  at  an  examination  would  be 
for  the  teacher  to  lose  a  patron  and  a  part  of  his  income. 
The  great  laws  of  business  economics  will  regulate  such 
matters  as  that.  This  is  the  self-regulating  system.  If 
a  parent  requires  his  son  to  complete  his  studies  within 
a  prescribed  period,  the  teacher,  on  pain  of  having  him 
removed  to  another  school,  will  readily  find  means  of 
proving  his  superior  capacity  and  bringing  him  through 
with  honors.  Children  of  wealthy  parents  must  of  course 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS         189 

receive  special  favors,  and  those  whose  parents  regard 
them  as  precocious  must  be  so  marked  as  to  sustain  that 
opinion.  The  variety  of  text-books  will  correspond  to 
the  variety  of  notions  which  parents  hold  about  them, 
those  which  each  used  'when  he  went  to  school,'  however 
antiquated,  being  usually  the  only  ones  allowed.  Such 
is,  in  brief,  the  general  character  of  private  education, 
proceeding  upon  the  economic  principles  of  supply  and 
demand,  the  latter  consisting  in  the  desires  of  parents 
and  guardians." 

State  education  is  uniformly  superior  for  a  variety 
of  reasons,  among  these  are  the  elimination  of  the  whims 
of  parents,  and  the  setting  of  the  interests  of  society 
as  the  goal  in  view.  It  also  places  "the  lowest  gamin  of 
the  streets  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  pampered  son 
of  the  opulent."  Further,  it  secures  in  a  much  larger 
measure  than  private  education  that  distribution  of 
knowledge  which  is  the  supreme  function  of  education. 

Ward  argues  with  great  cogency  in  favor  of  educa- 
tion being  made  universal.  This  would  prevent  "the  en- 
croachments of  the  ignorant  upon  the  intelligent,  and 
also  the  encroachments  of  the  intelligent  upon  the  ig- 
norant," and  a  doubt  is  expressed  as  to  which  of  these 
two  is  the  greater  evil.  It  is  also  considered  highly  de- 
sirable, as  noted  in  the  last  section,  that  education  should 
be  equal  for  laborer  and  capitalist.  It  is  shown  that  the 
superior  education  of  the  capitalist  enables  him  to 
avail  himself  of  the  highly  developed  processes  of  co- 
operation, while  the  less  educated  and  therefore  less  in- 
telligent laborers  fight  single  handed  and  often  against 
each  other;  and  not  only  this,  but  the  capitalist,  while 
practicing  co-operation  himself,  shrewdly  condemns  it 


190  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

when  practised  by  laborers.    This  point  is  well  developed 
as  follows: 

"But  the  consequence  is  that,  while  the  intelligent 
classes  have  co-operated  and  by  means  of  co-operation 
have  become  the  capitalists  and  employers,  the  ignorant 
classes  have  worked  individually  and  independently,  and 
have  been  compelled  to  turn  over  to  the  capitalists  with- 
out any  equivalent  the  greater  part  of  the  value  they  have 
created.  In  modern  times  the  latter  are  able  to  per- 
petuate their  hold  upon  the  labor  of  the  former  by  es- 
tablishing influential  organs  and  molding  public  opin- 
ion. The  laborers  have  few  if  any  such  avenues  of 
communication,  and  indeed  could  make  little  use  of 
them  if  they  had  them.  Those  who  are  able  to  read  at 
all,  therefore,  read  the  organs  of  the  capitalists,  and,  un- 
able to  penetrate  their  sophisms,  and  hearing  only  one 
side,*  they  acquiesce  in,  and  even  defend,  their  views. 
This  genuine  co-operation  on  the  part  of  capitalists  does 
not  go  by  that  name.  In  fact,  it  is  not  called  anything. 
It  is  simply  recognized  as  the  only  proper  and  success- 
ful way  to  do  business ;  and  such  it  really  is.  But  any 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  laboring  class  to  co-operate 
on  the  same  principle  and  for  the  same  object  is  loudly 
denounced  as  a  sort  of  crime  against  society!  The  la- 
borer is  actually  made  to  believe  that  it  is  so,  and  the 
state  frequently  steps  in  to  punish  it  as  such." 

In  his  discussion  of  compulsory  education, Ward  shows 
that  the  objection  is  to  the  word  rather  than  to  what 
it  really  means.  That,  since  all  children  fail  to  realize 
the  value  of  education,  because  they  know  nothing  about 
it,  compulsion  is  necessary  to  every  form  of  education, 
whether  conducted  by  the  state  or  directed  by  parents. 
Ward  is,  of  course,  wholly  in  favor  of  including  women 
on  the  same  footing  as  men  in  the  educational  process; 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS.        191 

especially    is    he    concerned    that    education    should   be 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  working  class : 

"It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  a  system  of  education, 
to  be  worthy  the  name,  must  be  framed  for  the  great 
proletariat.  Most  systems  of  education  seem  designed 
exclusively  for  the  sons  of  wealthy  gentry,  who  are  sup- 
posed to  have  nothing  else  to  do  in  life  but  seek  the  high- 
est culture  in  the  most  approved  and  fashionable  ways. 
But  the  great  mass,  too,  need  educating.  They  need  the 
real,  solid  meat  of  education  in  the  most  concentrated 
form  assimilable.  They  have  strong  mental  stomachs, 
and  little  time.  They  can  not  afford  to  take  slow,  wind- 
ing paths;  they  must  move  directly  through.  Culture 
they  can  get  along  without.  Failures  are  dead  losses. 
For  them  every  step  should  count." 

Ward  anticipates  the  questions  of  such  as  might  ask 
why,  in  the  present  social  situation,  he  has  so  much  to 
say  about  the  equal  distribution  of  knowledge  and  so  lit- 
tle to  advance  about  the  equal  distribution  of  wealth. 
His  answer  to  this  is  that,  if  knowledge  were  equally 
distributed,  inequality  of  wealth  distribution  would  im- 
mediately disappear.  He  ventures  to  criticise  social- 
ists for  not  taking  this  view  and  argues  that  they  are 
working  upon  the  roof  of  their  structure  instead  of  lay- 
ing its  foundations.  From  this  we  judge  that  Ward 
would  probably  be  considerably  surprised  to  know  how 
thoroughly  socialists  understand  that  the  chief  avenue  to 
the  realization  of  their  ideals  must  be  through  proper 
education. 

SUMMARY 

We  shall  now  present  at  the  close  what  Ward  presents 
at  the  beginning,  a  summary  and  recapitulation  of  the 


192  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

scheme  outlined  above.     The  terms  of  this  chain  and 
their  definitions  are  tabulated  as  follows: 

"A.  Happiness.  Excess  of  pleasure,  or  enjoyment, 
over  pain,  or  discomfort. 

"B.  Progress.  Success  in  harmonizing  natural  phe- 
nomena with  human  advantage. 

"C.  Dynamic  Action.  Employment  of  the  intellectual, 
inventive,  or  indirect  method  of  conation. 

"D.  Dynamic  Opinion.  Correct  views  of  the  relations 
of  man  to  the  universe. 

"E.  Knowledge.    Acquaintance  with  the  environment. 

"F.  Education.  Universal  distribution  of  extant 
knowledge." 

These  six  terms  and  their  definitions  lead  to  six  cor- 
responding theorems  of  dynamic  sociology  which  are 
again  tabulated  thus: 

"A.  Happiness  is  the  ultimate  end  of  conation. 

"B.  Progress  is  the  direct  means  .to  Happiness ;  it  is, 
therefore,  the  first  proximate  end  of  conation,  or  pri- 
mary means  to  the  ultimate  end. 

"C.  Dynamic  Action  is  the  direct  means  to  Progress; 
it  is,  therefore,  the  second  proximate  end  of  conation,  or 
secondary  means  to  the  ultimate  end. 

"D.  Dynamic  Opinion  is  the  direct  means  to  Dynamic 
Action ;  it  is,  therefore,  the  third  proximate  end  of  cona- 
tion, or  tertiary  means  to  the  ultimate  end. 

"E.  Knowledge  is  the  direct  means  to  Dynamic  Opin- 
ion ;  it  is,  therefore,  the  fourth  proximate  end  of  conation, 
or  fourth  means  to  the  ultimate  end. 

"F.  Education  is  the  direct  means  to  Knowledge;  it 
is,  therefore,  the  fifth  proximate  end  of  conation,  and  is 
the  fifth  and  initial  means  to  the  ultimate  end." 

A  third  and  last  table  is  then  given,  which  uses  the 
mathematical  sign  of  equivalence  only,  in  this  table,  in 


WARD'S  SCHEME  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PROCESS        193 

stead  of  reading  "equal  to"  the  mathematical  sign  should 
be  read  "will  result  in" — as,  "A  is  the  ultimate  end," 
and  "B  will  result  in  A,"  etc. 

A.  The  ultimate  end. 

B=A. 

C=B=A. 

D=C=B=A. 

E=D=C=B=A. 

F=E=D=C=B=A. 

Throughout  this  plotting  of  the  social  process,  which 
is  one  of  the  triumphs  of  modern  sociological  literature, 
there  is,  as  we  'have  already  intimated,  considerable 
treatment  of  what  Ward  calls  the  indirect  method.  What 
Ward  means  by  this,  and  the  importance  of  the  princi- 
ple, we  have  purposely  omitted  from  this  chapter,  re- 
serving it  for  treatment  in  the  next. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

INDIRECT  ACTION  VS.  DIRECT  ACTION 

As  the  reader  travels  through  the  invaluable  books  of 
Lester  F.  Ward,  he  perceives  a  theory  which  steadily 
rises  in  importance,  until  he  realizes  that  it  is  one  of  the 
most  important  contributions  of  America's  foremost,  if 
not  the  world's  foremost,  sociologist.  It  is  called  the 
"indirect  method."  The  difference  between  the  blind 
forces  of  nature,  the  instincts  of  the  lower  animals,  and 
all  the  sub-human  forces,  on  the  one  hand,  and  human 
reason  on  the  other,  is  that  the  former  operate  by  direct 
action,  while  human  reason  proceeds  by  the  indirect 
method.  The  indirect  method,  therefore,  makes  its  ap- 
pearance in  the  world  of  phenomena  with  the  dawn  of 
reason.  Its  appearance  marks  an  epoch  in  the  history 
of  things,  which,  in  the  estimation  of  Ward,  is  of  equal 
importance  to  the  appearance  of  life  through  the  forma- 
tion of  protoplasm.  The  direct  method  is  the  method 
of  all  animals,  and  it  is  the  method  of  all  such  acts  of 
the  lower  human  races  as  might  properly  be  called  ir- 
rational or  unreasoning  acts.  The  moment  reason  ap- 
pears and  begins  its  operations,  the  direct  method  is 
discarded  and  the  indirect  method  takes  its  place. 

All  social  progress  is  due  to  the  action  of  the  intel- 
lect. The  intellect  secures  progress  by  means  of  inven- 
tions, and  every  inventor  approaches  the  problem  by  the 
indirect  method,  or  what  would  be  called  in  military 
terms,  a  flank  movement.  A  huge  rock  is  to  be  moved 
from  one  place  to  another.  The  savage  method  of  mov- 

194 


INDIRECT  ACTION  VS.  DIRECT  ACTION  195 

ing  a  thing-  is  usually  that  of  the  lower  animals.  When 
he  wishes  to  move  anything,  he  seizes  it  with  his  hands, 
as  they  seize  it  with  their  jaws,  and  the  limit  of  ability 
in  both  cases  is  fixed  by  muscular  strength.  As  a  huge 
rock  cannot  be  moved  by  this  direct  method,  if  it  is  to 
be  moved  at  all,  strategy  must  be  resorted  to.  Strategy 
is  essentially  intellectual  in  its  character.  The  savage 
goes  directly  at  the  end;  the  reasoning  strategist  brings 
his  intellect  into  play  and  seeks  to  invent  means.  The 
nature  of  the  indirect  method  is  that  it  proceeds  to  its 
ends  indirectly,  through  means.  When  the  intellect  has 
reviewed  its  means  it  begins  to  work,  but  its  first  opera- 
tions appear  to  the  unreasoning  savage  as  having  no 
bearing  on  or  relation  to  the  end  in  view.  In  the  case 
of  the  rock  of  this  illustration,  the  intellectual  method, 
first  of  all,  manufactures  a  lever  and  the  fulcrum,  or 
it  builds  a  derrick.  This  is  a  round  about  way,  that  is 
to  say,  an  indirect  method,  but  it  is  the  only  one  effect- 
ive. In  the  beginning  when  the  savage  discovered  the 
value  of  fish  as  a  food,  his  method  of  fishing  was  direct 
and  correspondingly  ineffective.  It  was  to  plunge  his 
arm  into  the  stream  and  seize  the  fish  with  his  hand, 
but  the  urgings  of  an  appetite  ill  supplied  led  him  to 
ponder  until  finally  his  reason  led  him  to  use  means  to 
the  end.  The  means  in  question  consisted  of  a  fishing 
net,  which  is  an  invention,  the  result  of  strategy,  indi- 
rect and  effective. 

When  the  wild  grasses  failed  to  meet  the  needs  of  an 
increasing  population,  the  pondering  process  of  the  in- 
tellect was  requisitioned,  strategy  became  necessary,  and 
agriculture  was  invented.  It  was  the  intellect  which 


196  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

• 

came  to  the  rescue,  and  its  method  of  rescue  was  al- 
ways the  same,  the  invention  of  means  to  an  end  in 
place  of  a  direct  attack  upon  the  end  itself.  When  the 
savage  fought  his  battles,  striking  directly  with  his  fists 
he  was  often  defeated  by  animals  smaller  than  himself 
and  all  the  larger  animals  were  a  menace  to  his  exist- 
ence, but  as  his  intellect  developed,  it  led  him  to  the  in- 
vention of  means  to  an  end,  and  he  finally  became  mas- 
ter of  his  most  formidable  enemies  by  attacking  them 
through  the  means  of  the  bow  and  arrow,  axe  and  spear. 

The  difftrence  between  the  direct  method  and  the 
indirect  method  is  the  difference  between  nature  and  art. 
It  is  illustrated  by  Ward,  as  the  difference  between  an 
iceberg  drifting  aimlessly  across  the  ocean  and  an  ocean 
steamship  plowing  its  way  from  port  to  port.  It  is  the 
difference  between  a  river  winding  and  returning  upon 
its  course,  and  a  canal  following  a  comparatively  straight 
line  to  its  appointed  destination.  Chiaparelli  saw  its 
significance  when  he  held,  as  most  astronomers  hold,  that 
the  canals  on  Mars,  if  they  are  canals,  .are  strong  pre- 
sumptive evidence  of  the  population  of  the  planet  by  in- 
telligent beings.  If  only  rivers  had  been  observed  upon 
Mars,  no  such  inference  would  have  been  justified.  Riv- 
ers may  exist  in  the  absence  of  intelligence  and  the  in- 
tellectual method,  but  canals  are  always  means  to  ends; 
they  have  always  a  purpose;  they  are  always  the  pro- 
duct of  the  intellect. 

All  actions,  direct  and  indirect,  have  this  in  common, 
they  are  intended  to  obtain  ends.  The  difference  be- 
tween direct  action,  which  is  always  static  and  contrib- 
utes nothing  to  progress,  and  indirect  action,  which  is 


INDIRECT  ACTION  VS.  DIRECT  ACTION  197 

always  dynamic  and  progressive,  is  that  in  direct  ac- 
tion between  the  action  and  the  end  sought  by  the 
action,  nothing  intervenes,  while  in  indirect  action,  the 
intellect  introduces  a  third  element,  which  comes  be- 
tween the  action  and  its  end,  and  which  is  properly 
called  means. 

Inasmuch  as  direct  action  is  the  only  method  known 
to  nature,  and  is  the  method  chiefly  practiced  by  the 
lowest  savages,  who  depend  almost  entirely  upon  brute 
force,  Ward  calls  it  the  physical  method,  while  indirect 
action  is  called  the  intellectual  method.  Ward  says: 

"When  a  being,  endowed  with  desires  to  be  satisfied, 
is  made  acquainted  with  the  existence  of  a  desirable  ob- 
ject, it  is  immediately  prompted  to  move,  or  to  put  forth 
efforts,  in  the  direction  of  that  obj-ect.  To  such  a  being, 
another,  desiring  the  same  object,  that  should  turn  away 
from  it  and  commence  making  adjustments  in  other  ob- 
jects lying  about,  would,  to  use  the  language  of  fable, 
appear  extremely  stupid.  It  would  be  an  unnatural  ac- 
tion, i.  e.,  it  would  be  an  artificial  one.  If  successful  in 
securing  the  end,  unattainable  by  direct  effort,  it  would 
be  an  exercise  of  true  art,  and  would  involve  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  principles  of  true  science." 

And  again: 

"The  several  elements  which  were  shown  in  the  last 
chapter  to  make  up  human  progress  have  all  been  begun 
and  continued  by  dynamical  actions.  The  great  succes- 
sive arts  which  have  rendered  possible  the  system  of 
intercommunication  which  now  exists,  as  well  as  the 
varied  practical  inventive  arts  by  which  the  material  con- 
dition of  society  has  been  perfected,  have  all  resulted 
from  the  recognition  by  the  human  intellect  of  the  inter- 
mediate steps  necessary  to  be  taken  in  order  indirectly 
to  secure  these  great  ends  which  presented  themselves 


198  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

as  remote  objects  beyond  the  reach  of  direct  effort.  They 
were  all  accomplished  by  the  aid  of  means  little  if  at  all 
resembling  the  ends  sought."1 

The  scheme  of  the  social  process  presented  in  the  last 
chapter,  beginning  with  education  and  ending  with  hap- 
piness, seems  to  excite  against  itself  the  objection  that 
the  effort  expended  in  education  at  the  beginning  of  the 
process  and  having  to  pass  through  all  its  terms  before 
acting  upon  the  ultimate  end,  would  seem  to  lose  much 
of  its  power  in  transmission.  Ward,  himself,  says: 
"The  principal  reason  why  education  is  suspected,  and 
its  efficacy  doubted,  is  because  it  is  a  means  so  remote 
from  the  end  sought,  that  human  intelligence  can  only 
with  the  greatest  difficulty  penetrate  the  casual  relations 
which  unite  them."  Such  a  critic  would  therefore  be 
surprised  to  find  that  Ward  holds  precisely  the  oppo- 
site view  and  argues  that  this  very  remoteness  of  educa- 
tion from  its  ultimate  goal,  happiness,  in  the  social  pro- 
cess is  the  cause  of  its  great  efficiency,  and  a  reason 
why  our  chief  energies  should  be  applied  at  that  point. 
In  Ward's  estimation  the  objection  above  noted  is  as  far 
from  the  truth,  as  it  would  be  to  say  that  the  weight 
thrown  upon  the  longer  end  of  a  lever  would  lose  its 
power  by  transmission  along  the  lever  and  across  the 
fulcrum.  We  know,  of  course,  that  it  is  in  the  trans- 
mission that  the  power  is  multiplied.  The  lever  stands 
between  the  action  and  its  object,  but  it  does  not  absorb 
the  action,  or  if  it  does  absorb  it,  it  reproduces  it  a  hun- 
dred fold.  By  a  parity  of  reasoning  Ward  maintains 
that  in  the  case  of  this  chain  of  the  social  process,  ef- 
forts to  produce  human  happiness  will  be  more  effect- 


INDIRECT  ACTION  VS.  DIRECT  ACTION  199 

ive  as  it  is  applied  to  the  links  nearer  the  beginning  and 
remoter  from  the  end. 

The  earlier  part  of  his  chapter  on  education  is 
given  to  this  question.  The  direct  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness is  shown  to  be  ineffective:  "The  direct  pur- 
suit of  happiness,  even  by  the  individual,  is  pro- 
verbially barren  of  results."  "Imagine/'  says  Ward, 
"a  positive  majority  enactment  simply  requiring  all  citi- 
zens to  be  happy."  He  points  out  that  society  has  often 
sought  to  apply  indirect  means  so  as  to  control  action  in 
such  a  way  as  to  secure  happiness,  but  these  have  failed, 
because,  while  they  were  indirect,  they  were  not  suffi- 
ciently so.  History  has  shown  that  men  cannot  be 
made  to  change  their  opinions  by  direct  coercion;  some- 
thing must  be  used  as  a  means  and  that  something  must 
take  the  form  of  evidence  showing  the  opinions  to  be 
wrong.  Several  pages  are  devoted  by  Ward  to  giving 
instances  to  show  that  the  indirect  methpd  is  the  method 
of  mathematics,  physics,  chemistry,  and  biology.  Simple 
as  this  principle  may  seem,  and  little  as  it  may  impress 
at  first  consideration,  Ward  pronounces  it  "the  corner 
stone  of  dynamic  sociology."  The  failure  of  legislation 
intended  to  mitigate  social  conditions  is  almost  invaria- 
bly due  to  its  proceeding  directly  instead  of  indirectly. 
Herbert  Spencer  was  an  especially  keen  critic  of  all 
legislative  efforts  at  social  amelioration.  The  basis  of 
his  criticism  was  that  society  was  too  complex  to  be 
directed  by  anything  so  crude  as  legal  enactments.  In 
criticising  the  temperance  legislation  of  his  time,  he 
introduces  an  illustration  to  show  that  social  evils  can 
not  be  remedied  by  striking  them  directly  with  a  major- 


200  AN   INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ity  enactment.  The  comparison  is  so  excellent  an  illus- 
tration of  the  principle  we  are  discussing  that  we  shall 
reproduce  it  here. 

"You  see  that  this  wrought-iron  plate  is  not  quite  flat ; 
it  sticks  up  a  little  here  towards  the  left — 'cockles' — as 
we  say.  How  shall  we  flatten  it?  Obviously,  you  re- 
ply, by  hitting  down  on  the  part  that  is  prominent.  Well, 
here  is  a  hammer,  and  I  give  the  plate  a  blow  as  you 
advise.  Harder,  you  say.  Still  no  effect.  Another 
stroke?  Well,  there  is  one,  and  another,  and  another. 
The  prominence  remains,  you  see:  the  evil  is  as  great 
as  ever — greater,  indeed.  But  this  is  not  all.  Look  at 
the  warp  which  the  plate  has  got  near  the  opposite  edge. 
Where  it  was  flat  before  it  is  now  curved.  A  pretty 
bungle  we  have  made  of  it.  Instead  of  curing  the  orig- 
inal defect,  we  have  produced  a  second.  Had  we  asked 
an  artisan  practiced  in  'planishing/  as  it  is  called,  he 
would  have  told  us  that  no  good  was  to  be  done,  but 
only  mischief,  by  hitting  down  on  the  projecting  part. 
He  would  have  taught  us  how  to  give  variously-directed 
and  specially-adjusted  blows  with  a  hammer  elsewhere: 
so  attacking  the  evil  not  by  direct  but  by  indirect  ac- 
tions. The  required  process  is  less  simple  than  you 
thought.  Even  a  sheet  of  metal  is  not  to  be  successfully 
dealt  with  after  those  common-sense  methods  in  which 
you  have  so  much  confidence.  What,  then,  shall  we  say 
about  a  society  ?  'Do  you  think  I  am  easier  to  be  played 
on  than  a  pipe  ?'  asks  Hamlet.  Is  humanity  more  readily 
straightened  than  an  iron  plate?" 

The  Prohibition  propapanda  is  an  excellent  example 
of  the  utter  futility  of  direct  action.  The  problem  is: 
Men  drink.  The  remedy  proposed  strikes  directly  at 
the  end  sought,  stop  them  from  drinking.  There  is  no 
consideration  of  the  causes  which  lead  men  to  drink, 
their  miserable  surroundings,  over-worked  bodies,  and 


INDIRECT  ACTION  VS.  DIRECT  ACTION  201 

abused  nervous  systems,  crying  for  stimulants,  a  dull, 
dead  monotony  of  life  seeking  variation  in  any  way  pos- 
sible. These  things  enter  not  into  the  calculations  of  the 
Prohibitionist.  If  they  did,  he  would  perceive  that 
drinking,  in  so  far  as  it  is  dangerous,  might  be  prevented 
by  the  use  of  means,  the  means  being  improved  economic 
and  social  conditions,  better  and  more  prosperous  homes, 
easy  accessibility  to  higher  education,  the  best  music, 
literature,  and  drama,  so  that  by  comparison  the  saloon 
with  its  mechanical  piano  would  lose  its  power  to 'draw. 
But  all  this  is  too  indirect  and  belongs  too  purely  to  the 
intellectual  method  to  come  within  the  intellectual  grasp 
of  the  average  Prohibitionist. 

Social  purity  leagues,  consisting  largely  of  preachers 
and  prominent  members  of  their  flocks,  are  indignant 
about  segregated  vice  and  organize  societies  for  its  abo- 
lition. Their  method  of  procedure  is  the  direct  method 
of  the  savage  and  the  lower  animals.  To  close  the 
segregated  district,  even  the  police  with  their  extremely 
low  order  of  intelligence  have  discovered,  is  a  futile  pro- 
ceeding which  scatters  the  vice,  once  limited  to  a  dis- 
trict, throughout  the  city.  If  the  purity  leagues  would 
seek  for  causes  and  begin  by  understanding  the  nature 
of  the  problem,  they  would  probably  develop  their  in- 
telligence sufficiently  to  be  able  to  perceive  that  there 
are  means  which  might  be  employed  for  the  abolition  of 
the  white  slave  traffic.  But  the  low  wages  paid  in  de- 
partment stores  and  a  capitalist  regime  which  automati- 
cally regulates  the  wages  of  the  majority  of  women  on  the 
principle  that  whatever  may  be  lacking  for  their  sub- 
sistence in  the  pitiful  pay  envelopes,  may  be  gained  in 


202  AN    INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

another  way,  do  not  enter  into  the  calculations  of  purity 
leagues.  To  suggest  to  the  members  of  these  organiza- 
tions to  establish  the  economic  independence  of  women 
would  seem  a  remedy  so  remote  from  the  problem  in 
view  as  to  have  no  practical  bearing  upon  it,  but  it  is 
precisely  the  remoteness,  and  the  indirection  of  this 
method,  which  is  the  guarantee  of  its  success,  when  so- 
ciety shall  have  the  wisdom  necessary  for  its  adoption. 

Direct  action  as  a  phrase  has  come  into  general  use 
during  the  last  few  years,  as  the  program  to  be  applied 
to  the  solution  of  the  labor  problem.  It  is  rather  diffi- 
cult to  ascertain  precisely  what  is  meant  by  it  in  the 
utterances  of  its  advocates.  We  remember  seeing  in 
a  magazine,  which  speaks  with  some  authority  for  this 
propaganda,  something  to  the  effect  that  the  direct  ac- 
tionist  is  a  person  who  is  not  willing  to  wait  for  the 
slow  operation  of  the  political  process  and  proposes  to 
seize  the  means  of  production  and  hold  them  for  the 
working  class.  While  this  may  be  called  a  piece  of 
strategy,  its  real  nature  is  the  total  absence  of  strategy. 
The  workers  need  the  instruments  of  production;  this 
is  freely  conceded.  The  direct  actionist  says  "Take 
them;"  the  socialist  says  "Agreed,"  but  his  method  is 
intellectual.  To  get  possession  of  the  means  of  produc- 
tion is  the  end  in  view;  but  all  science  and  all  history 
teach  that  in  the  securing  of  ends  means  must  be  used 
and  his  analysis  of  society  shows  him  that  as  the  titles 
to  the  means  of  production  are  lodged  with  the  political 
state  and  defended  by  all  the  armed  powers  of  that 
state,  the  state  is  the  strategical  point  of  attack  and  po- 
litical action  is  the  essential  means  to  the  ultimate  goal. 


INDIRECT  ACTION  VS.  DIRECT  ACTION  203 

The  more  one  studies  the  latest  and  highest  develop- 
ments of  sociology,  the  more  one  is  impressed  with  the 
strength  and  genius  of  Karl  Marx.  Marx  saw  that  so- 
ciety was  a  process,  quite  clearly  as  Ratzenhofer.  As 
to  the  necessity  of  analyzing  social  structures,  he  is  no 
whit  behind  Spencer.  He  believes  thoroughly,  as  Ward 
holds  (see  next  chapter),  that  all  social  action  with  a 
view  to  modifying  the  social  process  and  social  struc- 
tures must  proceed  from  a  careful  objective  analysis 
of  the  social  forces  actually  in  operation.  When  he  ana- 
lyzes the  social  process  and  concludes  that  all  revolu- 
tions are  fundamentally  economic  in  their  aim,  but  that 
the  end  cannot  be  secured  by  direct  action,  but  must  be 
secured  by  means  to  the  end,  and  that,  for  a  variety  of 
reasons,  the  only  effective  means  are  political  and  that, 
therefore,  the  proletarian  revolution,  like  every  other 
revolution,  while  economic  in  its  aim,  must  be  a  politi- 
cal revolution,  he  proclaims  himself  the  greatest  social 
philosopher  of  this  or  any  other  time,  and  vindicates 
Small's  designation  of  him  as  the  Galileo  of  the  science 
of  society. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  PURPOSE  OF   SOCIOLOGY 

The  superiority  of  the  sociologists  to  the  political  econ- 
omists finds  its  clearest  expression  in  a  keener  apprecia- 
tion of  the  paramount  importance  of  the  social  problem. 
There  is  nothing  mysterious  or  elusive  about  this  prob- 
lem. It  consists  of  the  plain  fact  that  the  masses  of 
wage  workers  toil  long  hours,  under  miserable  condi- 
tions, and  produce  the  wealth  of  the  world,  receiving  in 
return  a  comparatively  insignificant  part  of  the  wealth 
they  have  produced,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  owners 
of  the  process  of  wealth  production  and  of  the  machin- 
ery used  in  the  process,  perform  practically  no  labor 
and  live  in  a  luxury  which  is  climbing  to  the  proportions 
of  an  eighth  wonder  of  the  world.  It  may  be  properly 
argued  that  this  luxury  has  an  enervating  effect  upon 
the  class  which  enjoys  it,  but  its  most  terrible  signifi- 
cance lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  ground  from  the  faces 
of  the  poor.  It  has  been  thus  since  private  property  in 
the  means  of  life  began,  and  it  will  be  thus  until  pri- 
vate property  in  the  means  of  life  ends.  Perhaps  the 
most  powerful  illustration  in  modern  literature  of  this 
process,  is  that  given  by  Oscar  Wilde  in  "The  House  of 
Pomegranates."  The  picture  is  composed  of  the  three 
dreams  of  the  young  king  the  night  before  his  corona- 
tion. While  recommending  the  reader  to  the  perusal 
of  them  all,  we  have  room  here  only  for  the  first. 

The  author  tells  us  that  the  mind  of  the  young  king, 
on  the  evening  before  his  ascent  to  the  throne,  was  occu- 

204 


THE    PURPOSE   OF    SOCIOLOGY  205 

pied  in  thinking-  of  the  gorgeous  robe  he  was  to  wear  at 
the  coronation.    The  story  then  proceeds: 

"When  midnight  sounded  from  the  clock-tower  he 
touched  a  bell,  and  his  pages  entered  and  disrobed  him 
with  much  ceremony,  pouring  rose-water  over  his  hands, 
and  strewing  flowers  on  his  pillow.  A  few  moments  after 
they  had  left  the  room,  he  fell  asleep. 

"And  as  he  slept  he  dreamed  a  dream,  and  this  was 
his  dream. 

"He  thought  that  he  was  standing  in  a  long,  low  attic 
amidst  the  whirr  and  clatter  of  many  looms.  The  meagre 
daylight  peered  in  through  the  grated  windows,  and 
showed  him  the  gaunt  figures  of  the  weavers  bending 
over  their  cases.  Pale,  sickly-looking  children  were 
crouched  on  the  huge  cross-beams.  As  the  shuttles 
dashed  through  the  warp  they  lifted  up  the  heavy  bat- 
tens, and  when  the  shuttles  stopped  they  let  the  battens 
fall  and  pressed  the  threads  together.  Their  faces  were 
pinched  with  famine,  and  their  thin  hands  shook  and 
trembled.  Some  haggard  women  were  seated  at  a  table 
sewing.  A  horrible  odor  filled  the  place.  The  air  was 
foul  and  heavy,  and  the  walls  dripped  and  streamed 
with  damp.  The  young1  King  went  over  to  one  of  the 
weavers,  and  stood  by  him  and  watched  him.  And  the 
weaver  looked  at  him  angrily,  and  said,  'Why  art  thou 
watching  me?  Art  thou  a  spy  set  on  us  by  our  master?' 

"Who  is  thy  master?'  asked  the  young  King. 

"'Our  master!'  cried  the  weaver  bitterly.  'He  is  a 
man  like  myself.  Indeed,  there  is  but  this  difference  be- 
tween us — that  he  wears  fine  clothes  while  I  go  in  rags, 
and  that  while  I  am  weak  from  hunger  he  suffers  not 
a  little  from  overfeeding/ 

"  The  land  is  free,'  said  the  young  King1,  'and  thou 
art  no  man's  slave.' 

'*  'In  war,'  answered  the  weaver,  'the  strong-  make 
slaves  of  the  weak,  and  in  peace  the  rich  make  slaves  of 


206  AN   INTRODUCTION   TO  SOCIOLOGY 

the  poor.  We  must  work  to  live,  and  they  give  us  such 
mean  wages  that  we  die.  We  toil  for  them  all  day  long, 
and  they  .heap  up  gold  in  their  coffers,  and  our  children 
fade  away  before  their  time,  and  the  faces  of  those  we 
love  become  hard  and  evil.  We  tread  out  the  grapes,  and 
another  drinks  the  wine.  We  sow  the  corn  and  our 
own  board  is  empty.  We  have  chains  though  no  eye 
beholds  them;  and  are  slaves,  though  men  call  us  free.' 

"  'Is  it  so  with  all  ?'  he  asked. 

"  'It  is  so  with  all,'  answered  the  weaver,  'with  the 
young  as  well  as  with  the  old,  with  the  women  as  well 
as  with  the  men,  with  the  little  children  as  well  as  with 
those  who  are  stricken  in  years.  The  merchants  grind 
us  down,  and  we  must  needs  do  their  bidding.  The 
priest  rides  by  and  tells  his  beads,  and  no  man  has  care 
of  us.  Through  our  sunless  lanes  creeps  Poverty  with 
her  hungry  eyes,  and  Sin  with  his  sodden  face  follows 
close  behind  her.  Misery  wakes  us  in  the  morning,  and 
Shame  sits  with  us  at  night.  But  what  are  these  things 
to  thee?  Thou  art  not  one  of  us.  Thy  face  is  too 
happy.'  And  he  turned  away  scowling,  and  threw  the 
shuttle  across  the  loom,  and  the  young  King  saw  that 
it  was  threaded  with  a  thread  of  gold. 

"  'And  a  great  terror  seized  upon  him,  and  he  said  to 
the  weaver,  'What  robe  is  this  that  thou  art  weaving?' 

"  'It  is  the  robe  for  the  coronation  of  the  young  King/ 
he  answered ;  'what  is  that  to  thee  ?' 

"And  the  young  King  gave  a  loud  cry  and  woke,  and 
lo!  he  was  in  his  own  chamber,  and  through  the  win- 
dow he  saw  the  great  honey-coloured  moon  hanging  in 
the  dusky  air." 

Whatever  dissent  there  may  be  as  to  the  solution  of 
the  social  problem,  there  is  none  as  to  its  existence. 
Nor  is  there  any  general  disagreement  as  to  its  funda- 
mental nature  among  those  who  have  probed  that  prob- 
lem at  all.  It  is  widely  agreed  that  between  the  poverty 
of  the  masses  and  the  luxury  of  the  few  there  is  a 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    SOCIOLOGY  20? 

causal  relation.  The  problem  itself  is  co-extensive  and 
co-eval  with  civilization  and  its  insistent  urging  has  been 
felt  and  has  found  expression  in  every  field  of  thought. 
Among  the  poets  none  have  spoken  more  clearly  than 
Keats  in  "Isabella": 

"With  her  two  brothers  this  fair  lady  dwelt, 
Enriched  from  ancestral  merchandise, 

And  for  them  many  a  weary  hand  did  swelt 
In  torched  mine  and  noisy  factories, 

And  many  once  proud-quivered  loins  did  melt 
In  blood  from  stinging  whip — with  hollow  eyes 

Many  all  day  in  dazzling  river  stood 

To  take  the  rich-or'd  driftings  of  the  flood. 

"For  them  the  Ceylon  diver  held  his  breath, 
And  went  all  naked  to  the  hungry  shark ; 

For  them  his  ears  gushed  blood ;  for  them  in  death 
The  seal  on  the  cold  ice  with  piteous  bark 

Lay  full  of  darts ;  for  them  alone  did  seethe 
A  thousand  men  in  troubles  wide  and  dark 

Half  ignorant  they  turned  an  easy  wheel 

That  set  sharp  racks  at  work  to  pinch  and  peel." 

Not  only  among  poets  and  literary  artists  does  this 
basic  idea  of  the  utter  wrongness  of  our  social  arrange- 
ments find  voice.  Huxley,  like  many  another  scientist, 
saw  it  and  realized  its  seriousness  for  the  race.  He  said : 

"Even  the  best  of  modern  civilization  appears  to  me 
to  exhibit  a  condition  of  mankind  which  neither  em- 
bodies any  worthy  ideal  nor  even  possesses  the  merit 
of  stability.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  express  the  opinion 
that  if  there  is  no  hope  of  a  large  improvement  of  the 
condition  of  the  greater  part  of  the  human  family ;  if 
it  is  true  that  the  increase  of  knowledge,  the  winning 
of  a  greater  dominion  over  nature  which  is  its  conse- 
quence, and  the  wealth  which  follows  upon  that  domin- 


208  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

ion  are  to  make  no  difference  in  the  extent  and  intensity 
of  want  with  its  concomitant  physical  and  moral  degra- 
dation among  the  masses  of  the  people,  I  should  hail 
the  advent  of  some  kindly  comet  which  would  sweep 
the  whole  affair  away/' 

And  again: 

"What  profits  it  to  the  human  Prometheus  that  he  has 
stolen  the  fire  of  heaven  to  be  his  servant,  and  that  the 
spirits  of  the  earth  and  air  obey  him;  if  the  vulture  of 
Pauperism  is  eternally  to  tear  his  very  vitals  and  keep 
him  on  the  brink  of  destruction  ?" 

Among  the  sociologists  we  may  listen  to  Mr.  Benja- 
min Kidd,  author  of  "Social  Evolution."  Speaking  of 
the  Socialists,  Mr.  Kidd  says: 

"The  adherents  of  the  new  faith  ask,  What  avails  it 
that  the  waste  places  of  the  earth  have  been  turned  into 
the  highways  of  commerce,  if  the  many  still  work  and 
want  and  only  the  few  have  leisure  and  grow  rich? 
What  does  it  profit  the  worker  that  knowledge  grows  if 
all  the  appliances  of  science  are  not  to  lighten  his  labor  ? 
Wealth  may  accumulate,  and  public  and  private  mag- 
nificence may  have  reached  a  point  never  before  at- 
tained in  the  history  of  the  world ;  but  wherein  is  so- 
ciety the  better,  it  is  asked,  if  the  Nemesis  of  poverty 
still  sits. like  a  hollow-eyed  spectre  at  the  feast?" 

As  might  be  expected,  the  poverty  of  the  laborers  has 
entered  largely  into  the  calculations  of  the  criminolo- 
gists.  Enrico  Ferri,  the  Italian  master  of  that^science, 
sees  in  poverty  the  chief  source  of  crime.  In  "Positive 
Criminology"  Ferri  draws  a  pathetic  picture  of  how 
poverty  does  its  work: 

"Want  is  the  strongest  poison  for  the  human  body 
and  soul.  It  is :  the  fountain  head  of  all  inhuman  and 
antisocial  feeling.  Where  want  spreads  out  its  wings, 
there  the  sentiments  of  love,  of  affection,  of  brotherhood, 
are  impossible.  Take  a  look  at  the  figures  of 'the  peasant 


THE   PURPOSE  OF   SOCIOLOGY  209 

in  the  far-off  arid  Campagna,  the  little  government  em- 
ploye, the  laborer,  the  little  shopkeeper.  When  work  is 
assured,  when  living  is  certain,  though  poor,  then  want, 
cruel  want,  is  in  the  distance,  and  every  good  sentiment 
can  germinate  and  develop  in  the  human  heart.  The 
family  then  lives  in  a  favorable  environment,  the  par- 
ents agree,  the  children  are  affectionate.  And  when  the 
laborer,  a  bronzed  statue  of  humanity,  returns  from  his 
smoky  shop  and  meets  his  white-haired  mother,  the  em- 
bodiment of  half  a  century  of  immaculate  virtue  and 
heroic  sacrifices,  then  he  can,  tired,  but  assured  of  his 
daily  bread,  give  room  to  feelings  of  affection,  and  he 
will  cordially  invite  his  mother  to  share  his  frugal  meal. 
But  let  the  same  man,  in  the  same  environment,  be 
haunted  by  the  spectre  of  want  and  lack  of  employment, 
and  you  will  see  the  moral  atmosphere  in  his  family 
changing  as  from  day  into  night.  There  is  no  work, 
and  the  laborer  comes  home  without  any  wages.  The 
wife,  who  does  not  know  how  to  feed  the  children,  re- 
proaches her  husband  with  the  suffering  of  his  family. 
The  man,  having  been  turned  away  from  the  doors  of 
ten  offices,  feels  his  dignity  as  an  honest  laborer  assailed 
in  the  very  bosom  of  his  own  family,  because  he  has 
vainly  asked  society  for  honest  employment  And  the 
bonds  of  affection  and  union  are  loosened  in  that1  fanv 
ily.  Its  members  no  longer  agree.  There  are  too  many 
children,  and  when  the  poor  old  mother  approaches  her 
son,  she  reads  in  his  dark  and  agitated  mien  the  lack 
of  tenderness  and  feels  in  her  mother  heart  that  her 
boy,  poisoned  by  the  spectre  of  want,  is  perhaps  casting 
evil  looks  at  her  and  harboring  the  unfilial  thought: 
'Better  an  open  grave  in  the  cemetery  than  one  mouth 
more  to  feed  at  home  !* " 

The  admiration  for  Lester  F.  Ward,  which  has  al- 
ready been  displayed  in  this  book,  is  based  not  only  upon 
his  wonderful  synthetic  and  analytic  powers,  but  upon 
his  keen  appreciation  of  the  nature  and  seriousness  of  the 
condition  of  the  working  class.  There  is  nothing  at  all 


210  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

comparing  with  it  in  the  standard  literature  of  political 
economy,  and  it  is  an  exception  even  among  the  broader 
thinkers  of  the  science  of  sociology.  Ward  agrees  with 
Huxley  that  social  conditions  are  so  bad  that  if  they  can- 
not be  remedied,  it  would  be  better  if  some  kindly  comet 
would  pass  by  and  sweep  the  entire  phantasmagoria  out 
of  existence.  A  just  estimate  of  Ward's  work  in  the 
sociological  field  would  probably  conclude  that  his  great- 
est contribution  is  his  "Applied  Sociology/'  This  de- 
cision would  detract  nothing  from  his  great  book  "Pure 
Sociology."  The  difference  between  "Pure  Sociology" 
and  "Applied  Sociology"  is  similar  to  the  difference  be- 
tween pure  mechanics  and  applied  mechanics;  it  is  the 
difference  between  theory  and  practice. 

"Pure  Sociology"  relates  to  the  science  which  seeks 
the  laws  of  the  social  process,  while  "Applied  Sociology1' 
seeks  the  social  arts  by  which  the  social  process  may  be 
modified  for  human  betterment.  Applied  sociology  must 
build  itself  upon  the  knowledge  obtained  by  pure  so- 
ciology, as  applied  mechanics  proceeds  upon  the  informa- 
tion obtained  from  theoretical  mechanics.  We  will  al- 
low Ward  to  explain  for  himself: 

"Pure  sociology  is  simply  a  scientific  inquiry  into  the 
actual  condition  of  society.  It  alone  can  yield  true  so- 
cial self-consciousness.  It  answers  the  questions  What, 
Why,  and  How,  by  furnishing  the  facts,  the  causes,  and 
the  principles  of  sociology.  It  is  a  means  of  self-orienta- 
tion. When  men  know  what  they  are,  what  forces  have 
molded  them  into  their  present  shape  and  character,  and 
according  to  what  principles  of  nature  the  creative  and 
transforming  processes  have  operated,  they  begin  really 
to  understand  themselves.  Not  only  is  a  mantle  of  char- 
ity thrown  over  everything  that  exists,  such  as  virtually 


THE   PURPOSE   OF   SOCIOLOGY  211 

to  preclude  all  blame,  but  a  rational  basis  is  now  for  the 
first  time  furnished  for  considering  to  what  extent  and 
in  what  manner  things  that  are  not  in  all  respects  what 
they  would  like  to  have  them  may  be  put  in  the  way  of 
such  modification  as  will  bring  them  more  into  harmony 
with  the  desired  state.  At  least  it  thus,  and  thus  only, 
becomes  possible  to  distinguish  between  those  social  con- 
ditions which  are  susceptible  of  modification  through 
human  action  and  those  that  are  practically  unalterable 
or  are  beyond  the  reach  of  human  agency.  In  this  way 
an  enormous  amount  of  energy  otherwise  wasted  can  be 
saved  and  concentrated  upon  the  really  feasible." 
******** 

"All  this  would  mean  a  complete  change  in  the  whole 
method  of  reform.  With  the  idea  of  reform  has  always 
thus  far  been  associated  that  of  heat  rather  than  light 
Reforms  are  supposed  to  emanate  from  the  red  end  of 
the  social  spectrum  and  to  be  the  product  of  its  thermic 
and  not  of  its  luminous  rays>  But  the  method  of  pas- 
sion and  vituperation  produces  no  effect.  It  is  character- 
istic of  the  unscientific  method  to  advocate  and  of 
the  scientific  method  to  investigate.  However  ar- 
dent the  desire  for  reform  may  be,  it  can  only  be  sat- 
isfied by  dispassionate  inquiry,  and  the  realization  of  the 
warmest  sentiments  is  only  possible  through  the  coldest 
logic.  There  either  is  or  has  been  good  in  everything. 
No  institution  is  an  unmixed  evil.  Most  of  those  (such 
as  slavery,  for  example)  that  many  would  gladly  see 
abolished  entirely,  are  defended  by  some.  But  both  the 
defenders  and  the  assailants  of  such  institutions  usually 
neglect  their  history  and  the  causes  that  created  them. 
The  hortatory  method  deals  with  theses  and  antitheses 
while  the  scientific  method  deals  with  syntheses.  Only 
by  the  latter  method  is  it  possible  to  arrive  at  the  truth 
common  to  both.  Only  thus  can  a  rational  basis  be 
reached  for  any  effective  action  looking  to  the  ameliora- 
tion of  social  conditions." 


212  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

Ward  is  a  consistent  opponent  of  the  doctrine  ol 
laissez  faire;  in  this  he  is  in  striking  contrast  to  Her- 
bert Spencer  and  on  the  side  of  August  Comte.  He  sees 
clearly  the  difference  between  Spencer's  Manchester 
school  politics  of  every  man  for  himself,  and  the  devil 
take  the  weak,  and  the  position  implied  in  Spencer's 
theory  of  the  social  organism,  and  while  he  naturally 
balks  at  a  society  so  thoroughly  organized  on  the  plan 
of  a  biological  organism  that  the  members  of  the  body 
politic  would  have  no  function  but  to  serve  only  the 
interests  of  the  whole,  he  perceives  a  point  of  differ- 
ence between  a  social  organism  and  a  biological  organ- 
ism which  breaks  the  analogy  sufficiently  to  guarantee 
all  the  individual  liberty  that  the  individual  man  needs 
for  his  highest  self-realization.  In  the  biological  or- 
ganism, the  sensorium  or  brain  is  centralized  in  a  sep- 
arate organ  apart  from  the  individual  cells  which  com- 
pose the  rest  of  the  structure,  while  in  society  there  is 
no  such  central  sensorium,  and  the  social  consciousness 
is  simply  a  consensus  of  the  consciousness  of  each  in- 
dividual. Thus  in  the  biological  organism  the  central- 
ized sensorium  operates  to  check  the  interests  of  the 
parts  to  the  advantage  of  the  whole ;  in  the  social  organ- 
ism the  consciousness  of  the  parts  must  always  compel 
the  whole  to  act  in  the  interests  of  the  parts. 

For  this  reason  Ward  has  no  fear  of  political  legis- 
lative action  in  social  affairs.  If  mistakes  have  been 
made,  it  is  not  because  the  method  was  wrong,  but  be- 
cause the  particular  attempts  were  made  upon  insuffi- 
cient data  and  the  applied  science  lacked  the  proper 
•foundation  in  the  pure  science.  Ward  thoroughly  be- 
lieves, and  we  believe  with  him,  that  when  the  social 


THE    PURPOSE   OF   SOCIOLOGY  213 

forces  are  thoroughly  understood  and  that  understanding 
is  widely  disseminated  among  the  members  of  society, 
it  will  be  possible  for  the  legislators  of  the  future  to  ap- 
ply the  indirect  method  to  the  social  forces  for  human 
advancement,  as  the  scientists  and  inventors  of  the  past 
have  applied  the  indirect  method  to  the  physical  forces 
of  the  universe  in  the  creation  of  modern  civilization. 
This  is  Professor  Small's  estimate  of  the  significance 
of  Ward's  appearance  in  the  sociological  field.  We 
quote  from  "General  Sociology:" 

"The  primary  meaning  of  Ward's  appearance  in  the 
sociological  field  was  that  a  bold  campaign  of  advance 
was  proclaimed.  He  virtually  said:  'It  is  possible  to 
know  enough  about  the  conditions  of  the  conduct  of 
life  to  guide  society  in  a  deliberate  program  of  progress. 
Let  us  proceed,  then,  to  organize  knowledge  and  re- 
search, with  the  definite  purpose  of  applying  it  to  social 
progress.  Let  us  not  be  content  longer  merely  to  analyze 
and  describe  what  has  taken  place  in  the  past  without 
the  assistance  of  knowledge  at  its  best.  Let  us  get 
familiar  with  the  factors  of  human  progress,  and  when 
we  have  learned  to  understand  them  let  us  use  them  to 
the  utmost  for  human  improvement.' " 

Ward  says  that  if  sociology  had  no  mission  of  human 
improvement,  he  would  never  have  taken  it  up.  Here 
again  we  shall  allow  Ward  to  speak  for  himself  in  a 
passage  which  in  our  estimation  is  unparalleled  in  the 
literature  of  the  professional  sociologists: 

"I  would  never  have  taken  any  interest  in  sociology  ft 
I  had  not  conceived  that  it  had  this  mission.  Pure  so- 
ciology gives  mankind  the  means  of  self-orientation.  It 
teaches  man  what  he  is  and  how  he  came  to  be  so.  With 
this  information  to  start  with  he  is  in  position  to  con- 
sider his  future.  With  a  clear  comprehension  of  what 
constitutes  achievement  he  is  able  to  see  what  will  con- 


214  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY 

stitute  improvement.  The  purpose  of  applied  sociology 
is  to  harmonize  achievement  with  improvement.  If  all 
this  achievement  which  constitutes  civilization  has  really 
been  wrought  without  producing  any  improvement  in  the 
condition  of  the  human  race,  it  is  time  that  the  reason 
for  this  was  investigated.  Applied  sociology  includes 
among  its  main  purposes  the  investigation  of  this  ques- 
tion. The  difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  achievement  is 
not  socialized.  The  problem  therefore  is  that  of  the 
socialization  of  achievement. 

"We  are  told  that  no  scheme  for  the  equalization  of 
men  can  succeed ;  that  at  first  it  was  physical  strength 
that  determined  the  inequalities ;  that  this  at  length  gave 
way  to  the  power  of  cunning,  and  that  still  later  it  be- 
came intelligence  in  general  that  determined  the  place 
of  individuals  in  society.  This  last,  it  is  maintained,  is 
now,  in  the  long  run,  in  the  most  civilized  races  and  the 
most  enlightened  communities,  the  true  reason  why  some 
occupy  lower  and  others  higher  positions  in  the  natural 
strata  of  society.  This,  it  is  said,  is  the  natural  state, 
and  is  as  it  should  be.  It  is  moreover  affirmed  that  be- 
ing natural  there  is  no  possibility  of  altering  it.  Of 
course  all  this  falls  to  the  ground  on  the  least  analysis. 
For  example,  starting  from  the  standpoint  of  achieve- 
ment, it  would  naturally  be  held  that  there  would  be 
great  injustice  in  robbing  those  who  by  their  superior 
wisdom  had  achieved  the  great  results  upon  which  civil- 
ization rests  and  distributing  the  natural  rewards  among 
inferior  persons  who  had  achieved  nothing.  All  would 
assent  to  this.  And  yet  this  is  in  fact  practically  what 
has  been  done.  The  whole  history  of  the  world  shows 
that  those  who  have  achieved  have  received  no  reward. 
The  rewards  for  their"  achievement  have  fallen  to  per- 
sons who  have  achieved  nothing.  They  have  simply 
for  the  most  part  profited  by  some  accident  of  position 
in  a  complex,  badly  organized  society,  whereby,  they  have 
been  permitted  to  claim  and  appropriate  the  fruits  of  the 
achievement  of  others,  But  no  one  would  insist  that 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  SOCIOLOGY  215 

these  fruits  should  all  go  to  those  who  had  made  them 
possible.  The  fruits  of  achievement  are  incalculable  in 
amount  and  endure  forever.  Their  authors  are  few  in 
number  and  soon  pass  away.  They  would  be  the  last 
to  claim  an  undue  share.  They  work  for  all  mankind 
and  for  all  time,  and  all  they  ask  is  that  all  mankind 
shall  forever  benefit  by  their  work." 

The  readers  of  this  book  will  recognize  the  identity 
of  these  conclusions  with  the  conclusion  of  Marx  and 
the  millions  of  men  and  women  who  have  adopted  his 
philosophy  and  who  are  working  for  a  social  transfor- 
mation which  will  abolish  the  poverty  of  the  masses  and 
realize  the  highest  hopes  of  the  clearest  thinkers  among 
the  workers  of  the  world.  We  shall  close  this  chapter 
and  this  book  by  once  more  quoting  from  Ward.  The 
quotation  is  from  a  speech  made  in  February  of  this 
year  in  New  York  at  the  anniversary  dinner  in  honor  of 
Thomas  Paine,  who  himself  said  that  the  race  will  never 
be  free  so  long  as  men  work  for  wages : 

"There  is  another  struggle  that  is  very  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  the  economic  one,  and  that  is  the  great  im- 
portant struggle  of  today.  I  call  it  the  social  struggle. 
When  men  were  in  the  political  struggle  they  imagined 
that  when  their  political  rights  should  be  attained  the 
millenium  would  be  here.  But  they  found  it  was  nothing 
of  the  kind;  that  they  had  not  reached  any  such  state, 
but  that  there  was  another  great  struggle  to  be  gone 
through,  the  economico-social  struggle,  the  struggle  of 
today.  The  political  struggle  confined  itself  to  the  third 
estate  rising  and  overthrowing  the  first  and  second  es- 
tates (clergy  and  nobility).  The  struggle  of  today  is  in 
the  direction  of  a  contest  for  the  attainment  of  social 
and  economic  equality,  and  is  the  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
fourth  estate,  which  used  to  be  called  the  proletariat — 
the  working  classes,  the  mass  of  mankind,  to  secure  so- 
cial emancipation." 


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